Crazy Buffy
by Hans the bold
Summary: And ... done. 41 chapters as Buffy Summers struggles for sanity and for meaning. Continuing the story begun in the episode 'Normal Again', Buffy faces the clash of worlds.
1. Introduction

Introduction, for those with an interest in the story behind the story ....  
  
* * *  
  
Welcome to "Crazy Buffy". This story, which is now complete, is my response to the episode "Normal Again", which aired during the 6th season of the show. Now, it is an interesting thing about my fanfiction that I don't tend to write about shows when I feel they are doing well, but I do tend to write about shows that I like. This is why you will find that I have no fanfiction about the first three seasons of Buffy, because there is really nothing I could write that would improve on what the show did in those days. It is also why you will find that most of my fanfiction is based on 7th Heaven, which is rich with potential drama but which is so badly done that it is now probably the worst thing ever put on television.  
  
Anyhow, "Crazy Buffy". The title is a term I used on the Buffy Flat Earth Society thread on the Buffy boards at Television Without Pity when debating the merits of Buffy Summers actually being a psychiatric patient rather than a vampire slayer, which was the story in "Normal Again". I was in the minority who felt that the uncertainty about reality as expressed in that episode was a good dramatic point that would be neat to explore further. The majority view was that having Buffy only hallucinating the whole slayer business would be a betrayal of the show's fans, who were heavily invested emotionally in the way the show was originally conceived. I have since read that Marti Noxon and the others responsible for Buffy were inundated with angry letters to this effect after "Normal Again" ran, resulting in them promising to never, ever again even hint that what Buffy was experiencing was anything but cold, solid, hard reality.  
  
Of course, that cold, solid, hard reality was the total derailment of the show in seasons 6 and 7. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this introduction, and I won't go into them here. What lies before you in "Crazy Buffy" is how I would have taken the show after "Normal Again". It is a test, if you like, of my thesis that Buffy the Vampire Slayer could have been saved as a dramatic story if the writers at Mutant Enemy had decided to challenge the fans the way they did in the first three seasons by doing what they knew would shock them and make them think. Of course, I, unlike Mutant Enemy, do not have to answer to network executives and advertisers concerned about ratings; at worst I might receive an unfavorable review. Nor do I have to assemble an entire season of television every year, so I enjoy certain luxuries in my storytelling that Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy do not. This is why I feel they may be forgiven for some, but not all, of the mistakes that they have made lately.  
  
I invite you, gentle reader, to read and enjoy the story that follows, and to leave a review or several if you like. Again, the characters who appear on the show itself belong not to me but to Joss Whedon and other Hollywood big shots. The one character from 7th Heaven belongs to the WB and Brenda Hampton, and although it is helpful to read my "Walking Away" series to understand why she is in this story, it is not necessary that you do so. Other characters, and the story itself, are of course my own and are (c) 2002-2003 by Hans the bold. Much inspiration was provided by Joanne Greenburg's "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden", which handles this same theme brilliantly. Finally, no money has been made, and no animals harmed, from the writing of this story. 


	2. One

ONE  
  
* * *  
  
He always noticed the parents.  
  
This was an old habit; perhaps he had it because he had read too much Freud. Perhaps a part of him still believed the old theories that if you understood the madness of the parents, you would understand the madness of the child. Who had said that? Szasz?  
  
Maybe. It didn't matter, though. Those theories were wrong.  
  
But he still noticed the parents.  
  
These two were like so many others. There was a stiffness to them, a weight to their eyes that was palpable. An imploring, too, as they looked at him.  
  
Please help our child.  
  
The father was the quieter of the two. He didn't move much, either, just sat and watched. From time to time he would come up with a question, sit quietly as it was answered. He knew the lingo, the jargon, knew every page in his daughter's file by heart. As they talked the doctor got the distinct impression that the man felt he could bring his daughter back just by this knowledge alone, that with knowledge it would be possible to see her look at him again.  
  
And he was holding all this in, the father was. The doctor could see that too.  
  
This was not unusual.  
  
The mother had the most striking face. It penetrated you, got in deep. Every emotion was in that face, there to read, to understand. There was a hardness there, too, like so many mothers he had seen. Because it so often fell to the mothers; the responsibility, the sacrifice, the pain. I carried this child inside me for nine months. I pushed it into the world. I held it at my breast. I am responsible.  
  
Now, as the woman stared at him, Dr. Garrett wondered how many mothers the psychiatrists of the old days had destroyed with their blame.  
  
"Doctor ...." the mother said slowly. The father shifted a bit in his chair.  
  
Garrett looked up at her from the file. The mother spoke again.  
  
"Can you help her?" 


	3. Two

TWO  
  
* * *  
  
Patrolling had a certain purity to it now.  
  
She remembered the first time, the time Merrick had taken her out to the graveyard, the feeling of the stake penetrating the chest of the thing, the explosion into dust of what had once been alive but that now was a perversion of life. She remembered the terror, too, that such things could be.  
  
"Into each generation a slayer is born ...."  
  
Yada yada yada.  
  
Things had been different then. Merrick, with his sad, tired face. The sight of the gymnasium, burning. The sound of her parents' voices.  
  
"We're getting a divorce."  
  
And then here. Sunnydale. Friends and Giles and the Hellmouth. The Master and Angel; Spike and Druscilla, the Mayor. Glory.  
  
Dawn. Losing Mom.  
  
Through it all, the only constant was patrolling. Fighting. Slaying. But as you walked through the empty cemetery, you had time let it all slip away, time not to think but simply to feel the cool night air, to do what it was that you were alive for.  
  
Alive.  
  
Dead.  
  
In that place, that perfect, loving place that you never wanted to leave.  
  
"Hello, little girl."  
  
She had felt his presence for several minutes now, had felt him stalking her. Now Buffy Summers turned and faced the vampire. He was tall, still dirty; recently risen.  
  
And his fangs were bared.  
  
Perhaps he expected her to scream. Perhaps he expected her to run. Certainly a normal, sane person would have.  
  
"Oh, my," she quipped. "Your family buried you in that suit? They must have secretly hated you. Family issues much?"  
  
He looked at her quizzically.  
  
"What?"  
  
Then her foot was impacting his face. His career as a vampire was short and ended in dust.  
  
#  
  
It had begun with dreams, so long ago now.  
  
Nightmares.  
  
Things, attacking her. Vampires.  
  
This is your calling, Merrick had said. You are the Slayer.  
  
She remembered being afraid.  
  
The dreams were gone now, the nightmares; sleep was simply a dark, empty place from which she never seemed to emerge well rested. And then it would be off to work, the stench of grease sticking to her hair, her skin, her clothes. In the evenings she would patrol, though there were not so many vampires in Sunnydale anymore.  
  
Now she was hunting people.  
  
I know what you did, Warren.  
  
I know you killed Katrina.  
  
I know that you want to kill me.  
  
She did not know why, though. Before, with Glory or Adam or the Mayor, there had always been a reason for what they did, a reason for their madness. But Warren?  
  
Why? Why kill her?  
  
She wished he was a monster; a real monster, not the human kind. She could understand those. Even Angel had made some sense that way.  
  
Angel. She remembered how he had made her feel. She remembered what Xander had said, what Spike now said. You like your men dangerous. You like that edge to them.  
  
Men who are good for you are the ones you avoid.  
  
It was late; the cemetery was quiet. After a time Buffy took the long walk home.  
  
Bed came and then sleep came, in their time.  
  
#  
  
It began slowly, uneven. A bed, not her bed. Lights, nearby, and movement.  
  
A place.  
  
But more than a place, too. Her, herself, in that place, in this place.  
  
Here.  
  
She heard herself cry out, like it was far away. She felt herself struggle, felt a stab in her arm, felt nothing nothing nothing at all.  
  
Listen listen listen listen listen you don't listen you don't listen you never listen bad girl bad girl bad bad bad bad ....  
  
She came awake with a start. 


	4. Three

THREE  
  
* * *  
  
Her name had come up at a conference. He had given a paper on post-modernist psychology and Adams had approached him afterward.  
  
"I've got a case that might fit the bill. Care to hear about it?"  
  
They had talked, and then it had been several hours and they had missed the keynote speech. Schizophrenia, catatonia. A delusional reality of astonishing complexity.  
  
Just your thing, Garrett. We had her aware, for a little while, last month. Then we lost her. Don't know why.  
  
Her name.  
  
It stuck with him because it was almost silly. Who called their daughter "Buffy" anymore?  
  
So he had asked to see her file and Adams had sent it to him. It was a thick thing and he had read it slowly.  
  
#  
  
NAME: Buffy Summers  
  
AGE: 21  
  
DIAGNOSIS: Catatonic Schizophrenia  
  
HISTORY: Illness began when subject was a freshman in high school, with irrational fears of mythological creatures, especially vampires. Was treated at Mayberry Clinic in Los Angeles (attending physician Dr. A. Griffith) and released after symptoms subsided. However, shortly after her release, Buffy suffered a relapse and attempted to set fire to the gymnasium of her school. Following hospitalization, her symptoms of anxiety increased and she began to experience increasingly powerful hallucinations despite antipsychotic therapy, claiming that her parents were getting a divorce and that various types of monsters were threatening the world. After six months Buffy slipped into a catatonic state, from which she periodically emerges in conditions of heightened anxiety, making psychotherapy difficult.  
  
In her catatonic state, Buffy has constructed a powerful fantasy world around herself, in which she is the central character (a "vampire slayer") in an ongoing apocalyptic drama. Included in this fantasy world are a group of friends, lovers, and other acquaintances, populating an imaginary small town in California called "Sunnydale". This reality seems remarkably consistent, so far can be seen from interviews made during her limited periods of awareness. Recent events in this fantasy world include the creation of an imaginary sister named "Dawn" and the death of her mother.  
  
There was a lengthened period of awareness in the Summer of 2001, but it ended in the Fall. According to Buffy, she had "died", but then her friends summoned her back into the Sunnydale reality, resurrecting her to reprise her role as hero.  
  
PROGNOSIS: Not favorable at this time. Neuroleptic drugs have had little long term effect or benefit. A recent change in medication to clozapine produced a brief period of awareness, but it could not be maintained. Patient requires regular supervision but generally remains immobile. Frequent visits by the parents are considered helpful and should be continued.  
  
#  
  
There was more; pages of notes from Adams and others. Interviews, medication reports. Garrett had read this all carefully, then sat back and thought.  
  
It was an interesting case; most schizophrenia patients gave confused accounts, even inconsistent ones, about their hallucinations. But the information here was largely regular; what the therapists had been able to glean about Buffy's imaginary world read almost like a series of novels; each year a new villain would menace her and her friends, and each year she would defeat it. There seemed to be rules to this imaginary world that didn't fit the mold of a schizophrenic delusion; save for the creation of a sister and her own periodic deaths and resurrections, life and death in this fantasy seemed nearly as constant as the real world.  
  
Garrett thought back to his paper.  
  
It is the narrative that we as therapists must consider. For each of us lives our own narrative, and the narratives of our patients frequently contain the seeds of their own healing. It is not up to us to define mental health but rather to help our patients define it for themselves as best they can.  
  
How does Buffy Summers define mental health? he wondered.  
  
It was this question that finally drove him to pick up the phone and make an appointment to see the girl and her parents. 


	5. Four

FOUR  
  
* * *  
  
Willow was there.  
  
Watching.  
  
Watching her.  
  
People watched her all the time. It was hard not to notice, after a while. She was the center, the linchpin. The slayer. It was she who had brought them in, Willow and Xander. It was she who they looked to for leadership, for guidance.  
  
How am I doing? she wondered.  
  
Perhaps not so well. Because of me, of my world, Willow is a recovering addict. She could have gone to Oxford or Harvard if I hadn't included her in my circle of friends. And Xander? What kind of a man would he have grown into, had it not been for my friendship? He's afraid now, all the time. Afraid of doing anything. Afraid of Anya.  
  
Is it because he expects me to rescue him?  
  
I don't know.  
  
But it's like everything and everyone I touch dies.  
  
I miss you, Mom. I miss you, Giles. I need you.  
  
#  
  
Willow was there, watching her.  
  
"Are you all right, Buffy?"  
  
Buffy looked up. There was concern, and no little fear, on her friend's face.  
  
I dragged her into the basement, Buffy thought. Left her to die. My friend. How could I do this to my friend?  
  
"I'm fine," she said.  
  
Willow nodded. She had that uncertainty in her face; in part it was simply a feature of her, in part something more, now. Buffy remembered back, to those first weeks in Sunnydale, to the Willow of then. A more innocent Willow.  
  
All grown up now, walking on the razor's edge.  
  
"You're sure, Buffy? You look --"  
  
The words trailed off. Buffy forced a smile.  
  
"I'm fine. All fixed up."  
  
"The antidote?"  
  
"Drank it all. You watched me."  
  
"It worked?"  
  
This was the real question. Buffy supposed it had; it had been a hallucination, that place, the hospital. Just demon poison affecting her mind. And yet ....  
  
Mom and Dad.  
  
Gone now.  
  
I made them go.  
  
Because she had. There was doubt, somewhere deep inside her. It had not been the antidote that had brought her back. It had been something more, something she wasn't quite able to define, something in the sight of the demon, tearing into her friends, into her sister.  
  
Something that she could not tolerate the sight of.  
  
"It worked," she said.  
  
Willow smiled. She had a sweet smile, even when riddled with doubt and fear.  
  
#  
  
And my smile? Do they see what is inside of me?  
  
Dawn was out, sleeping over at a friend's. She did that a lot lately. She was growing, too, taller now than Buffy, and always with that look to her that was a mixture of resentment and need. It was an old thing, this look, a feature of Dawn that in the old days had been merely irritating.  
  
There were no old days; it was all made up.  
  
Buffy paused, her hands plunged into the hot, soapy water of the kitchen sink, feeling the plates and pots and pans. Where had she heard that before?  
  
Willow was out too; she hadn't said where. Maybe she was with Xander at the Bronze. It was good that they had each other; they needed each other these days, and that's what old friends were for, really.  
  
Not like me. I had old friends, once. I was pretty and popular and happy.  
  
Buffy thought back. The kitchen was a mess; the house was a mess. She had to clean it up, had to keep it clean because there were those people from Social Services who were always coming to check on things, were always asking about how things were, about how Dawn was.  
  
But they never ask how I am.  
  
This thought came suddenly. Who ever asks how I am? Who ever asks how I feel? I was in paradise; in heaven. Everything is harsh here and no one understands.  
  
No one.  
  
Buffy pulled her hands from the water, dried them. Her bed was upstairs and without changing she crawled into the safety of darkness.  
  
#  
  
Lights, fluorescent.  
  
A chair.  
  
She could feel the chair.  
  
The world was wrong. It had a stuff to it that was like molasses, invisible, that got in the way of right being. Legs close, keep them close, and hands likewise.  
  
Because afraid 'fraid 'fraid.  
  
She was sitting.  
  
Eyes open and watching. A desk and him there, behind the desk.  
  
I know your face. I remember.  
  
I want no no no ....  
  
Voice.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
His voice. Little man, with balding and glasses he watches you. His voice, gentle soft.  
  
A whimper, her own.  
  
"How are you today, Buffy?"  
  
Your hand; her hand, up, in your hair. You feel your hair. Tug tug now.  
  
He waits, waited, for the answer.  
  
"Don't know," she said. "No no no ...."  
  
"It's all right, Buffy."  
  
This office. You were in here, remember? And over there, in those chairs, were Mom and Dad and they were looking at you and they were talking and there were words, remember?  
  
Undifferentiated schizophrenia.  
  
Voices.  
  
Crazy crazy crazy crazy girl! Listen listen crazy crazy girl!  
  
She whimpered again. The man, little man with balding and glasses, was closer, had moved closer. She looked at him.  
  
And there was good in the balding and glasses, and there was good in his voice.  
  
"Buffy? I know this is hard, but I want you to look at me."  
  
I want Mom and Dad.  
  
"I don't know ...." she said softly.  
  
His voice.  
  
"Buffy? What don't you know? Can I help you know it?" 


	6. Five

FIVE  
  
* * *  
  
He wondered if they were capable of real hope anymore.  
  
They were in the office with him, just sitting now. A few moments ago they had been talking, discussing, asking. They were the usual questions, the questions the parents always asked, questions that were half pleading and half dread. And he had answered these questions, calmly and honestly, as he always did.  
  
Can you help her?  
  
Perhaps. It will be difficult.  
  
Why?  
  
I believe that Buffy's condition is more than simply schizophrenia. I believe your daughter is also highly fantasy prone. I do not believe that her imaginary world or her imaginary friends are the result of her schizophrenia, but her creativity. If we are to help her, we must constantly keep this distinction in mind.  
  
What do you mean?  
  
I mean we must be willing to acknowledge that her fantasies are real to her, and respect that. We must respect her belief in them. We must not belittle them or act against them, save where Buffy herself allows it. It is possible to treat schizophrenia and free her to choose her reality, but we cannot stop her creativity, only make her aware of it. So we must be willing to accept that her fantasy world will probably always be as real to her as we are, but we must give her real reasons to want to be a part of this world too, good and bad.  
  
We have to accept her delusions?  
  
No. You have to accept that she accepts them.  
  
What do we have to do?  
  
Love her.  
  
#  
  
An hour ago they had been on the ward; Garrett saw that it was a familiar place to them now, that they didn't notice the stench of cigarettes from the lounge, the mixed smell of urine and bleach that permeated the rooms, the drab, cheerless walls. For those who came in for the first time there was always a fear about the ward, wrapped up in all the clichés about psychiatric hospitals, in visions of straightjackets and restraints and screaming and electroshock. But Joyce and Hank Summers were long past that now, Garrett knew. They were veterans of the system and they knew that the real terror of the ward lay not in the sights and sounds and smells of it, but in the knowledge that their daughter, their only child, was lost, her body warehoused here but her mind somewhere far away.  
  
They had seen Buffy, an hour ago. Sitting in a chair in the lounge by the window, the sun on her face, her hair mussed. Buffy had always liked to sit in the sun, Adams told him; she kept her knees drawn up, her arms close against her chest, staring out into nothing; sometimes she would walk if they led her; sometimes she had to be carried. She was small and light, despite the antipsychotic meds and lack of exercise, and it only took one orderly to do it.  
  
Garrett had been with them when they went to her, when Joyce knelt before her, reaching up to draw back a strand of hair that had fallen into her daughter's face. And Garrett had watched as they talked to her, as Joyce told her about the gallery and Hank spoke of the Dodgers, and they had said remember, Buffy, when we went to that baseball game? Wasn't that nice? Just the three of us?  
  
And Garrett had thought of hope and had felt the weight of it. Because they were counting on him now, on the famous psychiatrist who had told them that he would try to bring their daughter back to them. Even after six and a half years of disappointment, of failure after failure, of each moment of success disappearing before them, he knew as he watched that there was hope, if not in Joyce and Hank Summers, then because of them.  
  
#  
  
"You say the new meds are working?"  
  
It was Hank, breaking the silence in his office.  
  
Garrett nodded. "We're making progress."  
  
"She didn't look any different."  
  
"The periods of awareness are still infrequent. But she is responding now."  
  
Hank went silent again. Joyce's gaze went from one of them to the other.  
  
"She talked to you?"  
  
"Briefly."  
  
"What did she say?"  
  
"She was confused. But she responded to me when I spoke. I'm going to adjust the dosage of risperidone; I think we can expect more periods of awareness once we get more control of her symptoms."  
  
Joyce watched him now.  
  
"And then?" she asked.  
  
Garrett matched her gaze.  
  
"And then the difficult part begins." 


	7. Six

SIX  
  
* * *  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
She could feel her own breathing, in and out, in and out. Softness, against her face, her cheek. Her blankets; her pillow.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
Am I?  
  
Something touching her shoulder, poking her. Urgent.  
  
"Buffy, wake up."  
  
She moved, raised her head, felt the bedcovers slip from over her face. She blinked and looked up.  
  
Dawn.  
  
"What is it?" she mumbled.  
  
Her sister looked down at her.  
  
"Are you all right?"  
  
Buffy blinked again. "What do you mean?"  
  
"You've been asleep all day. The Doublemeat Palace just called. They want to know where you are. You were supposed to work this afternoon. What's going on?"  
  
She shook her head.  
  
"Nothing. I'm fine." She pushed back the bedcovers.  
  
"Why are you sleeping in your clothes?"  
  
Buffy looked down. Still in yesterday's clothes. Even her shoes.  
  
The thought came to her then.  
  
Demon poison.  
  
"Willow," she said. "Where's Willow?"  
  
Dawn took a step back, then another. Her voice trembled.  
  
"Why?"  
  
Buffy stood, her legs weak. "Dawn, please. I need Willow."  
  
"She's not here. I haven't seen her."  
  
Buffy raised her hand to her hair; it was mussed. She remembered tugging at it.  
  
No. Not that.  
  
Demon poison.  
  
"I have to find her, Dawn. We have to find her."  
  
Dawn had her arms crossed. Her face read fear and suspicion. "I checked her room when I got home," she said. "Her bed was made, like she always makes it."  
  
Buffy tried to think, but it was hard, like her thoughts were swimming through something thick. After a moment she shook her head, rubbed at her temples.  
  
Xander. Call Xander. He'll know where she is. It's Saturday and she should be here.  
  
Is it Saturday?  
  
Buffy slumped down on her bed. lowered her head into her hands.  
  
I was there. I remember the room. It was a different doctor but I remember the room. He was talking to me. I liked the way his voice sounded but everything was so strange, like the world wasn't right.  
  
I can't be going back there. I took the antidote. I took it all.  
  
Mom. Her face, looking at me. Her fingers, coming up toward my face.  
  
Demon poison.  
  
Dawn's voice again, more urgent.  
  
"Buffy ...."  
  
Buffy had the sudden urge to curl up, just to bring up her knees and bring her arms close, just to sit, to sit.  
  
"Buffy .... Please .... You're scaring me."  
  
She looked up. Dawn. Has your face always been so afraid, Dawn?  
  
Buffy stood again. She would call Xander, find Willow. Willow was probably just over at the university library. She would find her friend and Willow would make more antidote and it would all be all right again.  
  
It had to be.  
  
#  
  
Such fun.  
  
At first, it had been such fun. "Lords of Darkness". Archvillains. Nemesiseses. And Buffy had been the perfect target; a worthy opponent, a level 25 slayer with 200 hit points. Plans could be hatched, magics could be worked. And she would never know who they were, and it would all be like a great game, and in the end even better, the stories of it even richer, to be spread among your friends.  
  
Such fun, indeed.  
  
Yet it was no longer. It was wrong now, deeply wrong.  
  
Katrina.  
  
Warren.  
  
Why did he pick her? Why did he ...?  
  
A sex slave?  
  
The words had been merely words, merely an idea, not fully formed in Jonathan's mind, until those moments had come when she had actually faced them, dolled up like a French maid, yelling about rape.  
  
And then madness, struggle. Death. Reality.  
  
A sex slave means rape. Didn't you think about that?  
  
Nightmares.  
  
And fear.  
  
Because it wasn't a game anymore. It wasn't even like it had been when he had remade the world, when he, Jonathan, had been the savior, the hero, the level 30 one with a thousand hit points. No, now it was Warren, and his reassuring words, his hollow words and promises and that tone in his voice that said beware.  
  
I have killed, and I will kill again.  
  
I am an archvillain.  
  
Jonathan stood now, with Warren and with Andrew, looking down at the woman tied, gagged and blindfolded at their feet. He remembered her, from those days in high school when they had shared the common exile, from those days when Cordelia and Harmony and the others had cut at each of them with their sharp, expert tongues.  
  
He had shared American history class with her.  
  
Warren looked at Andrew.  
  
"She still has power?" he asked.  
  
Andrew nodded. His eyes were dark, different now.  
  
"She'll do," he said. "Geyrz will take her."  
  
Warren nodded. Without a word he turned and walked away; Andrew followed.  
  
Jonathan looked down one last time at the bound and unconscious form of Willow Rosenberg and fought off the urge to scream. 


	8. Seven

SEVEN  
  
* * *  
  
She could feel the sunlight on her face, her legs, her arms, even some of it leaking through the protection of her limbs to her body. It was warm and it asked nothing of her. There was a window, too, through which the sunlight flowed; the window was crossed by metal bars, and the glass was dirty and scratched, but you could still see vague shapes and forms outside. It was a parking lot and from time to time a car or a truck would move around in it.  
  
Warm good.  
  
It was quiet for a time. Out of the corner of her eye she could see people moving and sitting. There were chairs in the room, and a table, and high in the back corner a television set that flickered a bit, the volume just a bit too low to make out.  
  
Warm good. Quiet good.  
  
It seemed strange.  
  
Where was she? Where had she been?  
  
There was motion, then, just to her left. Someone in the room, moving. Toward her. As the someone approached Buffy didn't respond at all; it was too easy, too normal somehow, not to, rather to simply sit and stare out the window  
  
I don't remember the window. When was there a window?  
  
The someone was close. A woman. Out of the corner of her eye Buffy watched her.  
  
She was middle aged, her face showing the beginnings of it, eyes watching with a hot intensity, almost frightening. Her hair, blonde, seemed almost electric, like someone had singed it just enough to kill the life in it.  
  
For a time she just crouched there, beside the chair, watching. Buffy gave no notice of her. Then the woman spoke.  
  
"You aren't my daughter."  
  
Silence. In the parking lot outside a sedan backed out of its spot.  
  
"I burned her up. My daughter. I burned her up. I had to."  
  
A sight came to Buffy then. Somewhere, far away.  
  
A girl burning, screaming. Consumed. It was real, as real as the room and the window and the woman. Screaming screaming screaming.  
  
And she heard herself whimper, pulled her arms closer to her chest.  
  
"I burned her up," the woman said again. "I burned her up."  
  
Buffy felt herself tremble. She still had not looked the woman in the eye.  
  
Screaming screaming screaming.  
  
Another voice then. Another woman's voice. Buffy recognized it from somewhere, saw her through the blaze. Dark skin, big. In a white shirt and white pants. She heard her words.  
  
"All right, Annie. Let Buffy alone. Come on."  
  
There was motion again, the sense that the two were moving away.  
  
But the fires remained, and Buffy heard herself whimper again.  
  
#  
  
Have to find her. Have to find her.  
  
Demon poison!  
  
It was there and it was real. It was like she could feel it inside her, burning. Eating her up. Before, it had made her attack her friends, had lied to her with false images of Mom and Dad and the mental hospital.  
  
You remember the clinic? The first time?  
  
Never tell! Never tell! They think you're crazy!  
  
Have to find Willow. Willow can help. She's smart.  
  
They had searched the library, the campus. There were students there, walking to class, to meals at the dorm. And with each of them Buffy felt a little stab, a little reminder that what they did every day, what they could do, she could not.  
  
I have to work. I have to raise Dawn. I have to hold Willow and Xander together. I have to find Warren and his friends and stop them. I have to save the world.  
  
No Willow, anywhere.  
  
Just Tara.  
  
She's gone? I'll try a location spell. When did you last see her?  
  
They talked, she and Dawn and Xander, and Tara listened, nodded.  
  
We looked. We looked everywhere.  
  
The magic shop?  
  
Would she go there?  
  
I hope not.  
  
And then it was late and Tara sent them home. She would call.  
  
#  
  
They stepped inside, closed and locked the front door. Buffy could feel Dawn watching her but it didn't matter. She was tired, so tired, like she had been running and couldn't stop, like the universe was speeding ahead in fast forward but leaving her behind. Have to keep up.  
  
She stepped into the living room, sat down.  
  
Still Dawn watched her.  
  
"Are you all right?"  
  
Buffy nodded.  
  
"Just tired."  
  
A moment passed and Dawn didn't move.  
  
"You going to make dinner?"  
  
Buffy lowered her head into her hand, rubbed her brow.  
  
"Can we call out, maybe get pizza?" she asked.  
  
"Do you have any money?"  
  
Her purse was right there but it was too much trouble to reach it. And she knew the answer anyway.  
  
"No."  
  
Dawn took a step closer. Her voice was tinged with urgent fear.  
  
"Willow. I'm sure ...."  
  
Buffy looked up at her. She wanted to mention Tara, to say that it would be all right, because Tara was a powerful witch and that she could find Willow. It's going to be all right, she wanted to say.  
  
But words didn't come.  
  
Quiet instead. Buffy lowered her head into her hands again. The urge to just curl up on the couch was almost overpowering.  
  
The couch. Mom, lying here. Staring up at nothing.  
  
Oh, God ....  
  
Then Dawn, again, speaking from far away.  
  
"It's happening again, isn't it?" 


	9. Eight

EIGHT  
  
* * *  
  
In the room and on the bed you sit.  
  
Sit sitting. Your knees drawn up, your arms close. Because there is danger, always danger, and afraid afraid afraid.  
  
The door is opening in waves of not being of its real I don't understand.  
  
Opening.  
  
Watch it. Look at it.  
  
You do.  
  
Him. The little man balding of the good voice. He is there and he smiles at you and there, floating across the room, are his words. Can you see them floating there?  
  
"Hello, Buffy. How are you feeling?"  
  
Can you say something?  
  
No.  
  
More words.  
  
"You have some visitors today, Buffy."  
  
Open door open door door door open.  
  
Them.  
  
The couch, on the couch, looking up lifeless.  
  
Mom?  
  
There, across the room in an instant. And her face is love and good and oh, God I love you I love you Mom.  
  
"Sweetie?"  
  
The smile, tentative, afraid.  
  
I remember. Goodbye, Mom. You said I was strong. I had to go, Mom, don't you see? I had to save them.  
  
Close, sitting on the bed close. Like remember when you were a little girl and she would read you stories before you went to bed?  
  
And Dad, there. Dad, not in Europe away far away with his secretary.  
  
Her voice; your voice, so close that it is like it isn't your own.  
  
"Mommy?"  
  
"Oh, Buffy .... Oh, my God, sweetie ...."  
  
#  
  
She and Balding Good Voice now, in the office. She had the chair and it was stiff and hard to get comfortable because she kept her knees and legs up close. She had to do this, because of the poison. This was part of the poison and she had to find Willow soon.  
  
He watched her. He wasn't sitting behind the desk, but rather on it, facing her. He wasn't a big man and his legs didn't quite reach the floor.  
  
"Do you know who I am, Buffy? Do you remember?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Do you remember my name?"  
  
Balding Good Voice.  
  
She shook her head. Tangles of her hair crossed before her vision, shimmering in waves of infinity.  
  
"I'm Dr. Garrett. Do you know where you are?"  
  
Demon poison land.  
  
Her voice came then.  
  
"You aren't real."  
  
He smiled, took his hands and patted at his chest, his thighs, his shoulders.  
  
"I seem real," he said, and he chuckled slightly. "Why don't you think I'm real, Buffy?"  
  
She shook her head. "Demon poison," she said.  
  
"Demon poison?"  
  
She lowered her head, tugged a bit at her hair. "I need the antidote. Need Willow."  
  
"Willow. Your friend, yes? She will bring you this antidote?"  
  
Buffy nodded, looking up at him from under darkened brows.  
  
"Well," Balding Good Voice Dr. Garrett said, "perhaps until Willow comes with the antidote, we can talk."  
  
Buffy eyed him warily.  
  
In the background she heard someone else talking, their voices a cacophony.  
  
Crazy girl crazy girl crazy girl crazy crazy crazy crazy ....  
  
She moaned and covered her ears.  
  
His voice.  
  
"Can you hear me, Buffy?"  
  
"Yes," she whimpered.  
  
"What else do you hear?"  
  
"Make them stop," she moaned. "Make them stop!"  
  
Crazy crazy stupid stupid girl! Hate your mother hate your father hate everyone lie to everyone hate your school hate your friends hate your sister ....  
  
His voice. "Buffy? I'm right here. I'm not going away. You know your mother and father are close by; they're just outside waiting to see you again. They're very excited to see you. You know that, yes?"  
  
She was crying, suddenly, sobbing into her hands.  
  
"I made them go away .... I made them go .... I didn't want to .... Make them stop! Make them stop!"  
  
Then, suddenly, it was quiet in the room.  
  
His voice, gentle, wary.  
  
"Make who stop, Buffy?"  
  
"Them," she answered. "I don't like them."  
  
"Them? Who are they?"  
  
She tugged at her hair, beat against her forehead with her palm. The world was thick with filthy molasses, and it burned inside her eyes.  
  
"Them," she managed. "The voices."  
  
"They talk to you?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Do you know them? Do they have names?"  
  
"No."  
  
"They just talk to you."  
  
She nodded again.  
  
"They aren't your friends? They aren't Willow or Xander or Giles?"  
  
"No."  
  
He paused then, and then he spoke. "I will try to make them stop," he said. "But I will need your help if I am going to try. Can you tell me about your friends, Buffy?" 


	10. Nine

NINE  
  
* * *  
  
Dawn, screaming.  
  
"Buffy!"  
  
Awareness. Sudden, like the sound of a glass, dropped, shattering. A sharp breath, drawn in with a snap. Her own.  
  
"Dawn?"  
  
Tears, streaking her sister's face. Terror there.  
  
"Buffy? Please don't --"  
  
Dawn's voice trailed off.  
  
"Dawn, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."  
  
Dawn raised a wrist to her nose, sniffled and wiped it with the sleeve of her shirt.  
  
"You scared me."  
  
"I'm sorry," Buffy heard, though it seemed far away, still. "I just need --"  
  
Her voice trailed off, her answer unmade. She blinked. It was hard to get oriented, hard to make the world make sense. She reached up, tugged a bit at her hair.  
  
Dawn spoke.  
  
"You're going away again, aren't you? Like you did before. Like when you tried to ...."  
  
Buffy looked up at her sister, then away.  
  
"It's the poison. I need the antidote, Dawn. I need Willow."  
  
"Well, Willow isn't here! I don't know where she is!"  
  
Buffy glanced back sharply. There was anger and panic in Dawn's voice; it always seemed to be there, so close. Was I like that when I was her age? Did I snap at Mom like this?  
  
But at least I had Mom.  
  
I have Mom. She's sitting outside the office with Dad. The man, the doctor, he said so.  
  
But Dawn ....  
  
Her sister was watching her closely.  
  
"You're back there, aren't you? You swore you wouldn't go back there."  
  
"Dawn, I can't help --"  
  
"You swore!"  
  
Dawn turned now, stormed out. Buffy struggled up; she felt weak, like the universe was thick with something, like it wasn't right. Dawn was up the stairs now and then her door slammed shut.  
  
Buffy reached it, opened it.  
  
"Dawn --"  
  
"Get out!"  
  
"Dawn, I'm not going to leave you --"  
  
"You just did! You just did!"  
  
How long? Buffy wondered suddenly. I was there, in that place. There was Mom and Dad and there was that doctor. I talked to him. How long?  
  
"Dawn --"  
  
"You just want to leave! You're just like everybody else! I don't exist so you just leave! You're just like Mom!"  
  
Buffy felt her eyes go wide. It was silent, suddenly, as Dawn's face registered on what she had just said.  
  
"Dawn, what do you mean?"  
  
The voice burned now.  
  
"You know what I mean."  
  
"Dawn, you know she didn't want .... You have to know ...."  
  
"I know what I know. You're all the same."  
  
"Dawn --"  
  
"I don't exist there and you want to go back. You want Mom all to yourself. You always did. I know what you are. Get out."  
  
"Dawn --"  
  
"I said get out get out get out! I hate you!"  
  
The scream, the words, slammed hard into her. Buffy took a step back, then another. Her mouth was open but there was no air, suddenly. This was Dawn, her dear Dawn, for whom she had given her life, to whom she had sacrificed it all, everything, because of whom she could tolerate the long hours of the Doublemeat Palace, for whom she had fought the people at Social Services, had fought the Knights of Byzantium, had fought the Council, had fought Giles, had even fought a god.  
  
This was Dawn who was her and who she loved.  
  
Regardless, forever.  
  
I hate you.  
  
Buffy was out the door now, in the hall. She could see Dawn watching her, could see her sister trembling, could see the rage in her eyes.  
  
And with it her own.  
  
Sudden, hot, real. Coming up from deep, bubbling, stewing, and now here. Impossible rage, as the world screamed suddenly in it.  
  
Hate your sister! Hate your sister! Hate hate hate hate!  
  
"I have a right," she said softly.  
  
Dawn said nothing.  
  
"I have a right to love her, just like you do," Buffy said. "Don't you dare tell me I can't love her. Don't you dare tell me I can't love my mother."  
  
"Fine! Your mother! You already decided she isn't my mother! I hope you're happy together!"  
  
"Don't you dare!" Buffy screamed suddenly. "She's my mother too! Don't you dare!"  
  
Dawn was there, fast. The door slammed hard, rattling the frame.  
  
#  
  
Buffy trembled now. It was an involuntary thing, a sudden thing. Rage, yes, but more, more than this. Terror, deep down terror that was all to familiar but that familiarity never seemed to dull.  
  
It was all coming apart. She needed Willow but Willow was gone.  
  
The world was suddenly wrong, thick with nothing, like it was hard to walk through it.  
  
And somewhere, from somewhere, the voices.  
  
Hate your sister hate your sister killed your mother hate your mother ....  
  
Buffy moaned, brought her hands up to her head, cried out.  
  
"Stop it!"  
  
Hate you hate you hate you die die die die die ....  
  
I should have told Tara I needed the antidote. Maybe she could have made some.  
  
No. I need Willow. I need my friend.  
  
It's all coming apart.  
  
Crazy girl crazy girl crazy!  
  
I can't leave Dawn. I have to find Willow. I can't leave them. I'm the slayer and I'm the older sister and I'm all they have and they need me. I can't leave them but that's what the doctors and Mom and Dad want; I remember what that doctor said, that I had to leave them.  
  
I can't I can't I can't.  
  
I can't go on.  
  
You can't you can't you can't! Slayer liar slayer liar!  
  
Buffy stumbled to her room. The trembling was growing worse and she was afraid she wouldn't make it. And then she was there, by her bed, fumbling in the drawer, her search hampered by sudden tears, clouding her vision.  
  
There. Paper. Number in England. She fumbled for the phone, hands shaking, feeling the warm tears as they flowed down her cheeks, jabbing at the buttons, hearing the ring on the other end.  
  
You have to be there. Please, you have to be there.  
  
The phone rang, again and again and again.  
  
But there was no answer. 


	11. Ten

TEN  
  
* * *  
  
She was remarkably calm, most of the time. He supposed it was the drugs they had given her to keep her under control, or maybe the fear. Fear could calm you too, could make you sit quietly and wait for death.  
  
But he had never expected this of her. She had never seemed like the type to give in.  
  
Like he was.  
  
He hated having to feed her, hated it worse when he had to walk her to the toilet and lock her in for thirty seconds so she could relieve herself. Thirty seconds and no more; Warren's orders.  
  
He hated Warren, too.  
  
But most of all he hated himself.  
  
It was no game anymore. They were killers, criminals. There was no more talk about who had been the best James Bond, no more references to the beloved comic books and role playing games that had been his only real friends through high school. Rather it was all talk of the police now, of staying under cover until Andrew could complete his preparations, until they gave Willow over to Geyrz and in return were blessed with powers beyond anything they could imagine now.  
  
She looked so helpless, tied and blindfolded, parting her lips so he could slip the spoon or the straw into her mouth, so she could eat or drink.  
  
Maybe she doesn't want to live, he thought. Maybe she doesn't care anymore.  
  
I know I don't.  
  
Jonathan thought, from time to time, that perhaps he should free her, that they could both escape, that they could go to the police and tell them about Warren and Andrew, about Katrina. But Warren was watching now, all the time, and Warren had traps and security things that Jonathan didn't understand, but that he feared. And more than this Jonathan was afraid to run also because it would be admitting what he was, what he had thought and felt when Katrina had stood there and had poured him champagne and called him "master".  
  
Willow took the straw, drank. He had never spoken when she could hear; none of them had. She had no idea who they were, and wouldn't, until the end.  
  
Don't think about that.  
  
What will Geyrz do to her?  
  
Don't think about that.  
  
What will happen to me?  
  
Don't think. Just don't think. You want to live, don't you?  
  
No.  
  
Not anymore. 


	12. Eleven

ELEVEN  
  
* * *  
  
She slept and dreamt dark, featureless oblivion.  
  
She was, she knew, there, curled by her bed, the phone beside her, too weak with despair to move, even to crawl up and into bed. She was, she knew, there, lying flat on her bed, wrapped in the bleached, yellowed bedsheets all the beds had, there in the ward.  
  
It was her room, her nightstand, the phone by her. And her own voice, as she wept into the empty dial tone, as she tried to talk over the voices that wouldn't go away, that were accusing her as Dawn had accused her. Trying to explain to the dial tone that should have been her Watcher, her friend, trying, but explaining being so hard, so impossible, just mumbling something about Willow and disappearing and then more words and nothing and nothing and nothing on the other end.  
  
Because it was hard to sleep sometimes, in the ward. Hard to sleep well with all the meds and all the confusion and sometimes all the voices. And it was hard to sleep now too, because there was Mom and Dad, there beside her bed, looking down at her as she felt the drugs kick in, and she not wanting to let them go, afraid that when she awoke they would be gone.  
  
So she slept, curled by her bed with the phone and nightstand near, lying in bed in the ward beneath the yellowed sheets.  
  
Dead.  
  
And so there were, she supposed, no dreams to dream anymore. 


	13. Twelve

TWELVE  
  
* * *  
  
Somehow from this, she emerged in his office.  
  
In the chair again; he was sitting in another chair, facing her, the desk behind him.  
  
She had been watching him but there was no awareness of this.  
  
He watched her back. His face was serious.  
  
"Do you hear them, Buffy?"  
  
Voices. She listened. It was quiet. She shook her head.  
  
He nodded.  
  
"That's good. I think the medication is working."  
  
She watched him for a moment.  
  
"I'm sick?" she asked.  
  
"Yes."  
  
She watched him again, for a very long time. Then she spoke slowly.  
  
"I want to die."  
  
He didn't react; she had expected something, a raised eyebrow perhaps, a look of fear or surprise or sympathy. But there was nothing save for his response.  
  
"Why?"  
  
She began to answer but her voice drifted off. It was not a reason but a feeling and it was hard to put into words. A feeling.  
  
"Because," she said slowly.  
  
His gaze didn't vary, but there was something in it, something equally hard to explain. Something that made her want to tell him, that made her want to make him understand that it was just too much anymore, just too much with Dawn and Willow and always something dark and evil somewhere, and just too much with her thoughts about Spike, her need for him and her revulsion at that need. Too much to be the slayer, now, to be so alone, to be responsible for all of them.  
  
"Because it's too much," she said.  
  
"Too much? What is too much?"  
  
"Everything I have to do. Everything I have to be. I have to take care of them."  
  
"Your friends."  
  
She remembered, suddenly. Other words, in this office. From the other doctors.  
  
It's all a delusion. They are all just delusions. You have to fight them, Buffy, destroy them. You have to let them die.  
  
Telling her to kill her friends and her sister.  
  
"No!" she cried.  
  
"Buffy?" he asked.  
  
"You don't think it's real! You think I'm just crazy! You made me try to kill my sister! You don't even think she's real! She hates me because of you!" Her arms were in close now, her legs moving likewise. He was dangerous, this one was. Just like the last one. Just like all of them. She had to get away from them, had to find Willow, had to get more of the antidote.  
  
His voice remained calm. "Buffy, have I ever said your friends were not real?"  
  
"You don't believe they are."  
  
He looked thoughtful, brought up a hand and scratched an itch at the tip of his nose. Then he nodded.  
  
"I cannot see them," he admitted. "And I can't talk to them. Only you can do that. But it is not important to me whether I can do these things. What is important to me is that you can."  
  
"You want me to kill them," she accused.  
  
For the first time his face responded, and he frowned, shaking his head.  
  
"No," he said. "I have no right to demand that of you. They are your friends and you have a right to them. Buffy, I will tell you now what I want, and I believe this is what your mother and your father want also, though they themselves are afraid and they may not know it. All right?"  
  
She did not answer. Let him talk. Let him prove that this hallucination is real. Let him try. She remembered now, time after time in this office, with the other doctor, and before that still more doctors, all with the same words, the same arguments.  
  
It isn't real. They are not real. Your friends and your sister and your lovers are not real. They only exist because you are sick, because there is something wrong with you.  
  
You have to destroy them to get better.  
  
She waited, her eyes accusing, and he began to speak.  
  
Only his were not the familiar words.  
  
"I want for you what I want for all my patients, Buffy. I want you to be able to be happy. I want you to be able to see the richness of the world, and its pain also. I want you to be able as best you can to face all the challenges of the world, however you perceive them."  
  
Danger! Deception!  
  
"You're lying," she said.  
  
He shook his head.  
  
"You think I'm crazy."  
  
"I think you are ill. I do not believe that you are crazy."  
  
She opened her mouth to speak again, stopped short. Somehow she knew that he was the first to say it, to use the word, the word they all avoided but that they all thought. He had said it.  
  
Crazy.  
  
He was watching her.  
  
Not crazy.  
  
Sick.  
  
This was something different.  
  
She drew her arms closer to her chest, drew on the only defense she still had. 


	14. Thirteen

THIRTEEN  
* * *  
It seemed so real.  
  
A hand, gentle, touching her.  
  
She moved away with a moan, felt something hard against her head.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
Something moving nearby. The sound of something hard being set down. The gentle hand again, caressing, touching.  
  
It was so real. I was there, in that place. It was like it was the first time, when I said goodbye.  
  
I don't want to say goodbye.  
  
She heard herself whimper, brought her arms and knees close.  
  
"Buffy, can you wake up?"  
  
I know that voice. It's a good voice.  
  
There was his voice, too. He said he wouldn't hurt them.  
  
No one hurts my sister.  
  
"Come on, Buffy. Levitas."  
  
She felt herself rising as if on a cushion of feathers, then settling again onto something soft.  
  
Her bed.  
  
She opened her eyes.  
  
Her room. And there, by her bed, looking down at her with her big, mournful eyes, was Tara.  
  
Tara. Good Tara. Good Tara and her hand on her forehead.  
  
And back behind her, standing at the doorway, was Dawn.  
  
Tara smiled down at her. She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated. Then the words came, slowly.  
  
"Buffy, are you all right? Dawn found you ... called me ...."  
  
"I don't know," Buffy heard herself say. "I don't know."  
  
"You're not feverish," Tara said. "Dawn said ... you were going away."  
  
"Need Willow. Need the antidote."  
  
"Like before?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Tara nodded. "I'll make some. We still have a stinger."  
  
Buffy smiled. Tara brought her blanket up and laid it over her, then stood.  
  
"I'll be ... back."  
  
She left.  
  
#  
  
Warm. Safe.  
  
But not here.  
  
He watched her. Her face was wet with tears. She had been crying.  
  
He handed her a tissue.  
  
"I can't," she heard. It was her own voice.  
  
Liar liar liar filthy liar liar!  
  
"Buffy? What can't you do?"  
  
A whimper now. "I don't want them to go ...."  
  
"You don't have to let them go."  
  
She looked at him. His face was fractured by the fallen strands of her hair.  
  
"I don't want to ...."  
  
His face changed; a warmth grew there that she had not seen before.  
  
"You love them? Your parents? Your friends? Your sister?"  
  
Hate them hate them hate you hate you!  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Listen to me, Buffy," he said. "You are ill, but your friends are not your illness. Do you understand me? Tell them this. Tell them I am not their enemy. Tell Dawn and Willow and Giles and Xander that I want to help you, not hurt them. I cannot talk to them, Buffy; only you can do that. Will you tell them this?"  
  
Tears erupted again. The world was sharp, jagged, afraid, and she was alone.  
  
#  
  
Dawn stood at the doorway, watching. Buffy watched her back.  
  
Can you see? How much I love you?  
  
Dawn wiped her nose on her sleeve again. Her eyes were red.  
  
He said he was not your enemy.  
  
This thought came suddenly, and as it did Buffy drew her arms closer to her chest. Dawn was still there, still watching. And there was the memory of it, of his face, of the way he had frowned and scratched his nose.  
  
I will not ask you to hurt her.  
  
What did he ask? What had he said? It had all seemed so clear, so real. Not like before, in that place, when the world was thick with sticky fear and there were the voices, calling to her and screaming at her. Not like before when there was terror, terror everywhere and the only way to escape it was to huddle close and do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.  
  
No. It seemed so real.  
  
They told me to destroy all of you. They said you don't exist.  
  
They said. And I almost did.  
  
Mom. Her face, that last time. Her words.  
  
You are strong, Buffy. You are strong and we believe in you.  
  
Can I believe in him? Can I believe what he said to me?  
  
Dawn shifted in her place. She seemed uncertain about where she wanted to be.  
  
I have to think about this. He wasn't like the other doctor. He didn't say you are a delusion, Dawn. He didn't say I had to destroy you to get well.  
  
I want to get well. I don't want to be sick anymore.  
  
This last came as a surprise. But he had said it and somehow Buffy knew that it was true. Because she was sick, and it was more than the demon poison. It was something deep inside her, something that was empty, something that nothing ever filled, a void. It was undefined but it was there.  
  
I want to heal.  
  
"I love you, Dawn," she said.  
  
Dawn reacted to her words by wiping her nose with her sleeve again and then running away and down the hall. 


	15. Fourteen

FOURTEEN  
* * *  
Together.  
  
That was the first thing she noticed.  
  
Together. They were.  
  
She still sat with her knees drawn up, her hands close, her back to the wall, the frame of the bed against her back. She could watch the world that way, could watch the door.  
  
The world was firmer today, more stable. That was good.  
  
She thought of her own bed, the comforter drawn up close by Tara.  
  
Together. They came in.  
  
"Hello sweetheart."  
  
Dad smiled as she raised her gaze to him. Mom came close, tentatively, sat down on the side of the bed.  
  
"How are you today, Buffy?"  
  
She looked at them. They were there. Words were hard to find suddenly. When they came it was slow, soft.  
  
"I'm sorry, Mom."  
  
Mom reached out, her eyes wide and loving, hand caressing gently at her shoulder.  
  
"Oh, honey, you haven't done anything wrong."  
  
Buffy shook her head, looked down. It was hard not to cry and then she was.  
  
"I'm sorry, Mom. I wasn't there. I should have been there ...."  
  
"No, Buffy, it's all right ...."  
  
But the tears were flowing freely now, clouding her vision. She drew her hands closer to herself and shook her head.  
  
"I let you die, Mom .... I let you die .... Please .... I'm so sorry ...."  
  
Mom was reaching out then, and something soft was dabbing at her cheeks.  
  
"I'm not dead, sweetie. I'm right here."  
  
"No .... No ...."  
  
Mom's voice firmed suddenly, just a bit.  
  
"Buffy, look at me."  
  
Buffy did, watching warily.  
  
"Listen to me, Buffy. Whatever you thought you did wrong, it doesn't matter. You know I would forgive you. You know that. You're my little girl and there's nothing you could do that would make me not forgive you."  
  
The words sank in slowly, but they sank in deep. And with them there was Mom, and there was Dad, and they were close and it was good.  
  
#  
  
In time they sat and watched each other. There was much to say, and little.  
  
"The doctor tells us he's happy with your progress," Dad said finally.  
  
Buffy looked at him.  
  
"I'm sick," she said.  
  
They looked at one another, paused. Then Mom spoke.  
  
"Yes, honey. But ...."  
  
Buffy looked at her. You're a dream, Mom. I love you so much but you're a dream. Tara will bring me the antidote and you will go away, like you did last time.  
  
Last time. She remembered last time.  
  
Was it a dream?  
  
The demon, in the basement. Screams. Dawn and Xander and Willow and Tara, and the realization, through it all, that she did not know, really, what was a dream, and what was real, only that she had to choose.  
  
Choose. Let them go.  
  
And she had.  
  
But was it a dream? Is this a dream?  
  
I don't know.  
  
Let them go. She remembered the choice. There can be only one world, one place for you. Let them go.  
  
Cut them away.  
  
They would ask her again, Mom and Dad would. Just like the doctor, they would tell her that all that she knew was wrong, that it was all false, that it was all only because she was sick.  
  
But I am sick.  
  
She shook her head now.  
  
"I can't," she said softly.  
  
"Buffy?" her father asked.  
  
She looked at him. "I won't let them go. I won't let them die."  
  
Words. The new doctor. I am no threat to your friends.  
  
Dad looked at Mom again. He opened his mouth to speak, said nothing. Then Mom spoke softly.  
  
"Honey, you don't have to let them go."  
  
Buffy felt herself go tense.  
  
"You said I did. Before. You said they weren't real."  
  
The words were true and she saw Mom's face pale, just a bit, as they sank in. Dad looked away.  
  
Mom nodded then.  
  
"I know," she said. "And I'm sorry, Buffy. I can't see them. I don't know them. But I shouldn't have told you not to have your friends. Dr. Garrett has told us that they are yours and that we can't tell you not to have them. But sweetie, please. Please don't cut us out of your life because of them. Please let us love you too."  
  
Dad's gaze had returned and he nodded now, slowly. Buffy watched them both closely now.  
  
Choose.  
  
What choice? Ever?  
  
Did you choose to be the slayer? Did you choose to get sick?  
  
What did you choose?  
  
Buffy watched them both and suddenly she knew. 


	16. Fifteen

FIFTEEN  
* * *  
  
"Soon," Andrew said.  
  
They were in the basement, hunched around a table, the remains of a pizza between them. The table was one of those kinds that folded up, the chairs likewise. They had played boardgames on such a table, in the old days.  
  
Panzer division takes hill 432.  
  
Jonathan wiped his lips with his sleeve. His clothes were dirty; theirs were too. He wondered what the light of the sun would feel like against his face.  
  
Warren nodded. He had that look in his eyes, that look that never stopped roaming, that never stopped burning into you.  
  
"Once Geyrz comes, we'll have everything. This whole town. We'll be the overlords."  
  
"Sex slaves?" Andrew asked. His voice quivered a bit with a dark hunger.  
  
Warren looked at him and smiled.  
  
"Every girl in town. Your own little harem."  
  
Andrew nodded. His laugh was a tiny hiss.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Jonathan felt Warren's eyes move to him.  
  
"What about you?"  
  
"What?" he answered.  
  
"What are you gonna do, when we own this town?"  
  
Jonathan shrugged. Maybe I'll die, he thought.  
  
Warren smiled, reached out and punched his shoulder playfully. "We're gonna have power, boys. Not even the slayer will be able to stop us. Maybe we can put her in Andrew's harem. How about that?"  
  
Andrew nodded again, licked grease from the pizza from his lips. "Yeah."  
  
Jonathan picked at his nose. His mouth was dry and he wondered if he was going to be able to keep his meal down. And he thought about power, what it meant. Once he had had power, but it had all been that spell, and things had just gone wrong. He remembered the twins, their lilting Swedish accents, their perfect, beautiful smiles. He remembered them going away, like everyone always did, in the end.  
  
Power.  
  
You have the power.  
  
Life and death.  
  
He glanced over at the closed door to the small room in the back. 


	17. Sixteen

SIXTEEN  
* * *  
  
She sat with Tara now, down in the living room.  
  
"Nowhere?"  
  
Tara shook her head.  
  
"I tried. Everything. She's gone."  
  
"She wouldn't just go, Tara."  
  
"I know."  
  
Tara's voice shook as she spoke and now they sat quietly. From the stairs Dawn sat, watching them, saying nothing. And as Buffy looked at Tara she found herself wondering if this was the way a normal house should be.  
  
This isn't a normal house.  
  
What is it?  
  
The antidote had helped; things were calmer now. And the other place, where she wasn't who she was, seemed more distant.  
  
But it was still there.  
  
"Maybe Spike will know something," Buffy said. "I'll check with him."  
  
Tara nodded. There was fear in her eyes. She still loved Willow, loved her deeply, and Buffy felt her fear. And as she looked at Tara she found herself wondering what it was like to love like that, what it was like to feel a physical attraction for someone and have it be much more.  
  
Can I love that way?  
  
Did I love Angel that way?  
  
She didn't know. All there was for her was need, deep need, for a man's touch, for his body pressed against hers. It wasn't love, not with Spike. It was guilt and need and fear. Guilt because she knew that somewhere, deep inside him, was the man he had once been, the man he had once spoken of to her, his words bleeding with contempt at the man's weakness, while all the while wishing he would return.  
  
That man loved her. He was capable of love.  
  
But the demon was not.  
  
She needed him, the demon. Xander had been right, all those years ago. She liked an edge to her men.  
  
Fear was an elixir.  
  
She was still watching Tara. "I'll find Spike, see what he knows. Can you stay here with Dawn?"  
  
Tara nodded. Her hand went out, soft and gentle, over Buffy's. Her eyes said she understood.  
  
"Be careful."  
  
#  
  
Garrett recited the names of vampires one by one. The Master. Angel. Spike and Druscilla. Willow, from that alternate reality.  
  
He seemed most interested in this, so she elaborated.  
  
"I don't know where she came from, exactly. It was Willow, but she was a vampire. Giles said there must have been a parallel universe where she had been made a vampire."  
  
"A Willow in two places?"  
  
She shook her head. "No. Two Willows."  
  
He nodded.  
  
"I see."  
  
She knew Garrett didn't believe in them, but he seemed interested. She was seeing him daily now, sitting in the office and talking. He liked to listen to her, liked to hear her recount stories. From time to time he would ask for clarification about something, but mostly he was interested in letting her talk.  
  
It felt good to talk.  
  
The Mayor.  
  
"Evil?" he asked.  
  
She nodded.  
  
Glory. The monks. Dawn.  
  
"How is Dawn?" he asked.  
  
"I don't know. She's angry all the time. Since Mom died --"  
  
Her voice trailed off.  
  
Mom. Just a few hours ago she had sat in the main room of the ward with Mom. Mom had brought in a hair brush and while Buffy sat quietly Mom had brushed her hair. It had felt good.  
  
"Yes?" he asked. "Since your mother died there has been trouble with Dawn?"  
  
"It's not fair," Buffy said.  
  
"No?"  
  
"I have Mom and Dad. Dawn doesn't even have me."  
  
He looked thoughtful. "Is Dawn angry with me because you talk to me?" he asked.  
  
"I don't know. She never talks to me anymore. I don't know what to do. Mom always knew --"  
  
Silence, for a moment. Then he spoke and his words were not what she expected.  
  
"I imagine that it is not easy for Dawn. She needs you, Buffy. She depends on you. But you must not think that you alone can help her. Are there others, other friends, who you can get to help her?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
Garrett looked at her. "You know, Buffy, I think there is something you have a right to hear, but that you don't hear enough at all."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You do a lot for your friends. They should thank you. And they should be kinder to you, and stop expecting you to solve everything. I believe that you are an extraordinary young woman, Buffy, but that does not mean you should be required to always carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Put yourself first once in a while."  
  
"You don't understand," she said. "I'm the slayer."  
  
He shook his head.  
  
"Even the slayer deserves a day off."  
  
#  
  
As the appointment ended Garrett watched her go and took a few minutes to scribble down some notes. He had to go soon himself. There was a meeting in Pasadena this afternoon and he was required to attend; there was a dispute over funding for the hospital and he was on the finance committee. This took a lot of his time and he saw no purpose to it; he was a physician, not an administrator. As he thought about this he kept coming back to Buffy Summers and her imaginary world, and he smiled ruefully.  
  
How tempting it is, he thought, to simply escape into fantasy, into dreams. Reality is too hard, too frustrating sometimes. And to be able to create truly realistic fantasies; what a gift that must be.  
  
A gift with thorns, hidden. A dangerous gift.  
  
Buffy Summers was a young schizophrenic. She would in all likelihood never have a real life, would at best need to be medicated until the day she died, in and out of hospitals, would carry the brutal stigma of the mentally ill forever. But in her also was that spark, that intangible something that could create, that was no different from what had driven Shakespeare, Homer, Mozart or van Gogh.  
  
Later, as Garrett fought his way through the midday traffic of Los Angeles, he found that a small part of him envied her this. 


	18. Seventeen

SEVENTEEN  
* * *  
  
Hank Summers looked at his wife as she sat down at the table. There was a steaming plate of meat between them, some vegetables, some bread. She raised her plate, took some, and he did likewise.  
  
Neither spoke.  
  
He remembered, in this room, the meals with the three of them. He and his wife and his daughter. There was a lot of Joyce in Buffy, in how they looked but as well in how they were. And there, in that chair, Buffy had sat, all those years ago, when she was a bright eyed child, filled with enthusiasm and a love of life, of living. Little things that at the time had not seemed like much; moments stolen away from work to watch her junior high cheerleading squad perform, remembering how silly he had once thought the whole thing was but now being so proud, because it was her out there, his little girl.  
  
And Hank remembered too, as the darkness descended.  
  
Trouble in school, in adjusting to high school. Nightmares that shattered his sleep with screams. And the cross, the big cross, that she insisted on wearing because of the vampires, because they were out there, she said, and they were coming for her.  
  
He knew the other kids teased her about the cross.  
  
And there was no cheerleading either, after a while. She was kicked of the squad and for days would not leave her room. He remembered the sobbing, the voice of her mother, trying to console her, remembering that adolescence was hard but that it should not be this hard.  
  
He remembered the Mayberry clinic, the face of Dr. Griffith.  
  
He remembered the meds, making sure she took the meds.  
  
He knew them all by heart now.  
  
Just as he knew all the names of her imaginary friends.  
  
"Hank?"  
  
It was Joyce. She was offering him seconds. He shook his head.  
  
It's wrong, he thought. I don't like it.  
  
"Are you all right?" his wife asked.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
She watched him. She had a penetrating gaze, Joyce did. The room was silent for a moment. Finally he spoke.  
  
"I don't like it, Joyce. I don't like being told to lie to her."  
  
Joyce watched him for a moment.  
  
"We haven't lied," she said.  
  
"Haven't we? Garrett wants us to tell her we believe in her delusions. He wants us to tell her they are as real as we are."  
  
"He said that to her they are."  
  
Hank looked away. He brought his hand up, rested his chin in his palm. "But they aren't real, Joyce. How will she ever get better until she can accept that?"  
  
Her eyes were still on him. "What if she can't?" she asked softly.  
  
"She can. She can do it. But not if Garrett keeps encouraging her to live in a fantasy land. We need to let him go and get her grounded in the real world."  
  
Joyce's voice rose, just a bit.  
  
"Like last time?"  
  
Hank looked back at her. They both remembered, there with Dr. Adams, there with Buffy, when Buffy had said she would try, that she would reject her imagination, her unreal friends. They remembered the struggle, the pain in Buffy's face as she tried.  
  
And they remembered Adams' words.  
  
I'm sorry, we've lost her.  
  
"We were close," Hank said now. "The new drugs are working. She can fight her delusions now."  
  
Joyce shook her head.  
  
"No," she said.  
  
"Joyce," he said, "This isn't right. She can't get better if she doesn't accept reality."  
  
"No."  
  
"Joyce --"  
  
"I was there!" she snapped.  
  
He stiffened, just a bit, at her words. And as he opened his mouth to speak again she cut him off.  
  
"Oh, God, Hank, don't you see? We tried; Adams tried. We tried everything we could and Buffy still went away." She lowered her head into her hands as the tears came.  
  
"Joyce, we can try again. She's strong; you know that."  
  
His wife looked up now, at him. Her eyes were red and wet.  
  
"No. I've watched our daughter die every day for six years, Hank. I watched her face as she said goodbye to me. I will not watch that again. If I have to share her with imaginary friends and monsters to have even a part of her in my life, I will do that. But I will not risk what we have now, what Dr. Garrett says we can have with her, just because she spends time in her dreamlands. Do you understand?"  
  
He watched her. She watched him back.  
  
"Joyce ...." he began.  
  
"No! I mean it, Hank! Do you understand?"  
  
He went silent. The ache in him didn't go away. 


	19. Eighteen

EIGHTEEN  
  
* * *  
  
Her fear of graveyards had vanished long ago.  
  
But that had been a different fear, a different kind of fear. That had merely been a fear of death, of things crawling up out of the ground to tear her throat out.  
  
Death. Been there, done that.  
  
No, now her fear was deeper.  
  
She wondered if perhaps it was a fear of life.  
  
Perhaps. She only knew that he brought it on.  
  
Once, he had been her enemy. In a way he still was. In a way he was more dangerous now than he had ever been. Why do I need him this way?  
  
The door to his crypt was easy to open and she slipped inside. He was watching television, the sound of a sappy soap opera echoing slightly in the chamber. He didn't turn his head as he spoke.  
  
"Well, well. Look who's here."  
  
Her voice sounded hollow as she spoke.  
  
"I need your help, Spike."  
  
A pause then, as he stared at the flickering television screen. A commercial came on for the latest SUV, rumbling through hill and dale. He turned then, regarded her.  
  
"Always with the help these days, eh, slayer?  
  
"Spike, I don't have time for this."  
  
He rose, still watching her. "You never have time, do you, slayer? That's your bloody problem. There's always some important mission for you, and then you come running to old Spike."  
  
"Willow is missing. I need to know what you know."  
  
He raised an eyebrow.  
  
"That's it? No oh-my-God-Spike-the-world-is-ending-please-help-save-us? The witch is a big girl."  
  
"No. There's something wrong, Spike. We need to find her."  
  
"Maybe she took a bloody vacation. You all need one, you know."  
  
Buffy turned, threw her hands up in frustration.  
  
"God! Why do I keep coming to you?"  
  
He chuckled and stepped forward. "I've got something you want."  
  
"No. Not that. Not anymore. Not ever. Is that clear?"  
  
He smiled, tapped at the side of his nose.  
  
"Every time you say that, love, I know you still want it."  
  
"Do I have to hit you, Spike?"  
  
She took a step toward him and he laughed.  
  
"Relax, slayer. I'll ask around. The witch is a big name in some circles, even if she's on the wagon. They'll know if there's anything."  
  
Buffy nodded. She moved toward the door of the crypt, toward the light of day. She had to get away from him as quickly as she could.  
  
But then she felt his hand, on her shoulder. She felt the burning singe of his touch as it shot through her body, and she quivered. His voice had changed, just a bit.  
  
"Wait, slayer. Don't go."  
  
#  
  
It was a hard day today.  
  
Stupid stupid stupid girl! Ugly! Ugly! Stupid stupid crazy crazy crazy girl!  
  
She was in her chair, in the office with him. She kept tapping at her forehead with her palm, tugging at her hair.  
  
He was trying to talk to her.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
"Stop it!" she cried.  
  
"Can you hear me, Buffy?"  
  
"Stop it stop it stop it!"  
  
Stupid stupid ugly whore! Whore whore whore whore!  
  
She was crying now, the world spinning in impossible triangles of shattered air. Because the voices were right. She was dirty, incapable of love. She wanted only release, and she gave herself willingly to a monster, again and again, but it never came.  
  
Whore whore whore whore!  
  
"Please stop!" she cried. "Please ...."  
  
But it did not.  
  
#  
  
It was night now, and home was far away.  
  
I have to get home. I have to get home but it seems so far.  
  
How far? From his crypt to my home, how far?  
  
I don't know. To the end of the ward, to the desk where they give us our meds?  
  
No. Not here. Here is Sunnydale. Here I have to get home because I have to be there for Dawn.  
  
Then a hand, gripping her, throwing her to the ground. An unfamiliar face as she looked up; not human, not quite. It bared teeth and came for her.  
  
#  
  
Her foot, lashing out. Then hands closing around her limbs. Voices.  
  
Crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy ....  
  
Things, gripping her wrists, her legs. Herself, screaming. Other voices.  
  
"Get her down! Morris, get her down!"  
  
She fought, but there was no strength, not the strength she knew she had.  
  
She was no slayer, but the monster was near.  
  
#  
  
Run. Run. Like in a nightmare she ran. Because he was big, this vampire was,  
close behind her in the darkness. Big and strong and it was impossible to fight him because she was not, because she was weak and insane and suddenly not the slayer.  
  
Not the slayer as he cornered her in the alley.  
  
She knew this alley, remembered it.  
  
Angel. He had followed her in here, so long ago. He had given her the cross that had saved her life. Angel had looked at her in that way, that annoying way, that irritating way, as he had turned and walked off.  
  
She heard a laugh and turned.  
  
The vampire was there. He watched her, his face forming an obscene smile as he bared his fangs.  
  
"Yes, run. I love the taste of your fear, slayer."  
  
"Please ...." she begged.  
  
He advanced. She backed away, felt the wall behind her.  
  
And then his hand had closed about her throat, and he drew her close. 


	20. Nineteen

NINETEEN  
  
* * *  
  
Tight things, around her wrists and her ankles. A belt around her hips, another around her chest, pressed up against the flesh of her breasts. Tight, padded, unyielding. She would die now, as he took her.  
  
She cried out and fought.  
  
#  
  
His tongue, hot and harsh, licked at her throat.  
  
"You are easy prey, slayer."  
  
Slayer.  
  
Slayer.  
  
Just there, she had knocked Angel from his feet.  
  
Just there.  
  
In each generation there is a chosen one.  
  
She cried out. Her arm came up, then down, over the vampire's, snapping his hold on her, her elbow then slashing up. She felt the crunch of fangs and bone as it did, as he staggered back, spitting blood and teeth.  
  
"What?" he demanded.  
  
Her foot then, lashing out. The blow caught him, sent him back into the far wall. By the time he had risen to his feet again Mr. Pointy was in her hand, driving into his chest.  
  
He screamed and then there was dust.  
  
#  
  
Dust.  
  
Specks of it, in the air. Floating in a sunbeam.  
  
Floating above her.  
  
It was quiet in the room. She could hear her own breathing.  
  
Her wrists were bound, her ankles also. Across her chest were two thick belts, padded. She was helpless.  
  
It was good. She watched the dust as it floated in the sunbeam above her.  
  
#  
  
In time the door opened. A woman came in, heavy and with dark skin, dressed in a white shirt and white pants. She stepped to the side of the bed, looked down at her.  
  
"How are you feeling today, Buffy?"  
  
After a moment the word emerged.  
  
"Better."  
  
The woman smiled. "That's good. I'm going to take your pulse now, all right? Then, if you're still all right, we'll see about letting you up in a little while. Do you need anything?"  
  
Buffy shook her head.  
  
"No."  
  
The woman smiled again, and Buffy felt her warm fingers against her neck.  
  
"Much better," she said. "You gave us all quite a time, last night."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
The woman looked surprised. Then she reached over, gently touched at Buffy's cheek.  
  
"That's all right, Buffy. You rest now."  
  
The thick door closed and it was silent again.  
  
Quiet good. 


	21. Twenty

TWENTY  
  
* * *  
  
Home.  
  
It was morning now and she stepped up to the front door, slipped inside.  
  
Quiet.  
  
Where memories of the night should be, there was nothing. She stepped into the living room, heard noise from the kitchen.  
  
Latin.  
  
Tara, there at the counter in the center of the kitchen. Dawn standing behind her. They looked up; the room smelled of incense.  
  
"Buffy," Tara said. Her eyes were puffy, tired.  
  
"What's this?" Buffy asked.  
  
Tara looked back at Dawn. "Dawn had an idea," she said.  
  
Dawn smiled. Buffy looked at her.  
  
"Have you been doing magic, Dawn?"  
  
Dawn's smile vanished and she shook her head. "No, no. I just thought that since Tara can't find where Willow is, maybe she could look for where she isn't."  
  
Tara smiled. "I've covered a good part of town. It's a good idea."  
  
Buffy nodded, then felt a smile move across her face. "Thank you, Dawn. It is a good idea. Have you found anything?"  
  
"Not found." Dawn corrected.  
  
Buffy chuckled.  
  
"All right. Have you not found anything?"  
  
Tara shook her head. "Not yet. We'll keep trying."  
  
#  
  
She was watching him and he watched her now, his face curious.  
  
"We'll keep trying," he said.  
  
Familiar.  
  
The words, but not the meaning.  
  
"How do you feel today?" he asked now.  
  
She remembered. Spike, his hands not living, no pulse in them. Yet feeding her need, for life, to feel something, even if only for a moment or two or three. Needing to feel like there was some reason, some small pleasure in the gray, sharp pain that was everything.  
  
Touch me.  
  
Hold me.  
  
Take me.  
  
And he did.  
  
But when it was over there was nothing save for her disgust at what she was.  
  
Dead.  
  
"I can't anymore," she said. "I can't."  
  
"Can't what, Buffy?"  
  
"Live. It's too much. It hurts too much." She lowered her head into her hands, lacing her fingers behind her head. Every day was pain, was loss. The universe was a fragile thing, teetering on the edge of chaos, of fear and hate and suffering, and nothing, nothing in all of it was permanent, was certain, was safe. There was no hope in it, for hope was an illusion, taken away by fate.  
  
You are the chosen one. You cannot just be a normal girl, cannot just be a cheerleader who shares giggles and gossip and milkshakes with her friends. You have to save the world and save the world and save the world, and when you cannot it is you, not the world, that has failed.  
  
And you are crazy. You are the crazy, broken girl who they all laughed at in the halls of school, because you wore that big cross and because you were afraid and because the voices kept talking to you and the vampires kept looking for you but no one else ever saw them. You are the one who the shards of sharp reality tear, cutting into you, spinning as you are ripped into a million pieces of pain. You are the one who stands in line for meds that make you feel dead, who lives in the world of the hall and the ward and the rooms and the restraints, holding you down in place as your soul burns.  
  
Buffy whimpered. She drew back in her seat, pulling her knees close, her arms protective against her chest. And she saw as Garrett nodded, as he leaned back in his chair. "Life is hard," he said. "There are no guarantees."  
  
It seemed a platitude and she seized it in her rage at the world.  
  
"How would you know?" she shouted. "How would any of you know? You don't have these voices in your head and this filth touching you and this hollow inside you! You get to sit there all fine and go home in the afternoon and everything's just fine! How would you know?"  
  
He didn't answer. His face was different suddenly; the calm, relaxed look was gone, just for a moment. Then he reached back, pulled out his wallet, opened it.  
  
"You think your pain is the only pain, Buffy?" he asked.  
  
She just watched him. He pulled out something from his wallet and handed it to her. She took it.  
  
It was a photograph. A little boy. One of those school photos where they line you all up and say smile and snap and flash and then next please. The boy was missing two of his front teeth and he was smiling broadly.  
  
"My son," Garrett said softly. "Leukemia."  
  
It was silent, there in the office where she sat. 


	22. Twenty One

TWENTY-ONE  
  
* * *  
  
In time their session ended. She went quietly back to the ward with the orderly. There was a fatigue to her and Garrett took a moment to consider it. Buffy Summers was now, to all outward appearances, much more insane than she had been before. He recalled the ward report, recalled the words of the orderlies as they described her fighting, screaming, weeping in pain and fear.  
  
He was relieved that the parents had not seen this.  
  
And he was relieved too, that she had fought, that she had screamed, that she had hurt and been afraid.  
  
For the battle for Buffy Summers was well under way now. She was alive, no longer an unmoving piece of furniture. Gone were her accusing stares, her insistence that all he wanted was for her to abandon her reality. There was a measure of trust now, fragile still but a beginning. She understood that he was not her enemy, not the enemy of her creations. And there was war, inside her.  
  
For her.  
  
She had told him a great deal in the past few weeks.  
  
Merrick. Lothos.  
  
Sunnydale High School. Cheerleading and friends and a watcher and a witch.  
  
The Master.  
  
Angel.  
  
On and on until now, until Anya and Tara and Spike and Dawn.  
  
Spike.  
  
Garrett marveled for a moment at the extent of her guilt, her shame. This was a deep thing that went far beyond her penchant for vampires, for dangerous fantasy men. It was a fear of herself, of what she might do to a lover who was not already scarred, already broken.  
  
She loves, so deeply, so powerfully, that her own flaws become magnified. She does not believe she can be good enough for a good man.  
  
Is there a good man in her universe? Can there be?  
  
Garrett thought again about the ward report. There would be many more reports like it before this was settled, if ever. Because Buffy Summers was fighting now.  
  
Fighting for her life.  
  
Perhaps she could slay something more than a vampire this time.  
  
#  
  
Perhaps.  
  
They had a site, a time. Andrew had chosen it, had picked through it carefully, as he and Warren watched. Warren never looked at him, never said a word unless it was an order.  
  
You know your place in this? You know what you have to do?  
  
I know.  
  
You screw this up, Jonathan, and ....  
  
I know.  
  
He had his things, those things he needed. It shouldn't be hard; just keep it all hidden. He was good at that, Jonathan was. As a boy he had always kept secrets well, as a teenager even better.  
  
He had kept them so well there had never been a need to belong.  
  
Warren turned, looked at him. He had that gaze it was hard to return.  
  
You know what you have to do?  
  
Jonathan nodded.  
  
I know. 


	23. Twenty Two

TWENTY-TWO  
  
* * *  
  
There.  
  
They had been crossing out sections of the map, one by one, slowly. It seemed a labor.  
  
There.  
  
Dawn looked at her. Tara looked back.  
  
"That's the only place in town that she isn't not."  
  
Dawn nodded. She watched Tara, and Tara watched her back. There was a look that Tara had, a soulful, mournful look in her eyes sometimes that went right into you and right through you. It was pain, yes, but it was more than just her pain, just the pain of her upbringing, the twisted family that had wanted to destroy her spirit and that had abandoned her. No, this was a pain that was the pain of others, too. It was the pain of Willow, struggling to control her power, the pain of Xander as he tried, slowly and painfully, to become a man, the pain of Giles as he fought evil and fought the harsh reality that none of them were the people he had once known. And it was Buffy's pain too, the pain of being torn away from heaven, from the peace of death, to return here and fight once again against evils that never quite went away.  
  
And it was her pain, Dawn's pain, too. Of all of them it was Tara who Dawn knew most understood her, who knew best that Mom's death was something that would never heal, who knew that it would hurt inside forever, and who, in knowing this, had become a little bit of Mom, a little bit of the mother that Buffy could never be.  
  
It was for this and more that Dawn had, not entirely realizing it, sworn her utter loyalty to Tara. And Tara loved Willow; in a way that Dawn didn't fully understand, yes, but she loved her and that was what mattered.  
  
All that mattered.  
  
There.  
  
She was not not there.  
  
Dawn looked at Tara, spoke softly.  
  
"Call Buffy. Call the others." 


	24. Twenty Three

TWENTY-THREE  
  
* * *  
  
Complicated. Always so complicated.  
  
It hadn't been that way before, not in the old days. You got up, got up early so you could be off to school before the fighting began, before Dad, hung over or sometimes still drunk, would start to argue and fight with Mom, who was likewise. You got up, got to school and there you sat with Willow and Jesse and the three of you formed a wall of sarcasm, of protective wit, against Cordelia and Harmony and the others. You formed a history with them too, a life that went beyond the dull, pointless classes and the dull pointless talks by the adults, and you looked at the girls and you joked with Jesse about how you sure would like to go out with her, would sure like to kiss her, or her, or her.  
  
All so simple then.  
  
Then.  
  
Buffy Summers.  
  
He could still remember the first day, the first time, as he rode on his skateboard and saw her moving up the stairs of the school, as the swaying of her hips had caught his eye and man, there was something about her, something in those cute chipmunk cheeks, in those short, oh so short skirts she wore and something about how she was carrying a wooden stake in her purse. Something.  
  
Something that had changed everything.  
  
Jesse, not Jesse anymore.  
  
Fangs, that look in his eyes that wasn't Jesse, that wasn't his friend and yet that still was.  
  
And then was dust. By his hand.  
  
Not even anything to bury. How was he supposed to look Jesse's folks in the eye and tell them that he had killed the demon that their son had become? How was he supposed to explain?  
  
I can't.  
  
And he hadn't.  
  
Instead he had gone after what had killed his friend.  
  
The others, Giles and Buffy and even Willow, they didn't understand this. They couldn't. They couldn't understand that it was simply a thing he, as a man, had to do.  
  
Simple. Find vampires. Kill vampires.  
  
It had been so simple, for a while. Vampires, demons, monsters. Find them and kill them. Even Angel; he had been right about Angel, right all along. Wherever Angel was now, he was doing harm. He was. It was what he was.  
  
But things were complicated now. Spike was a vampire, but he had a chip. And Spike had helped them, had tried to save Dawn. Then there was Ben, who had not been a bad guy but who was also Glory who was bad as bad could be, and so Giles had choked the life of out Ben. Innocent Ben. And now there were these three idiots who kept making trouble. Like Jonathan; Xander had gone to school with the guy; Jonathan had always been the kid people picked on, the kid they loved to insult and belittle. He wasn't bad, wasn't a vampire, wasn't a demon.  
  
Was Anya?  
  
What was Anya?  
  
Anya was why Xander drank now, why every day after work he took a bottle of scotch and tried to finish it before bed. What was Anya? The woman he had left, who he had stupidly abandoned at the altar because his father was a drunk, because his father was a failure, because his father was the one thing in all the universe he was most afraid of becoming?  
  
Xander stared now, at the half empty bottle of scotch, the familiar and dulling effect of the alcohol making him blink.  
  
You don't want to be your father, but look at you.  
  
Go to hell.  
  
Look at you.  
  
"I said go to hell!"  
  
The bottle hit the wall but didn't break, so weak was his throw.  
  
Look at you, Xander Harris.  
  
He lowered his head into his hands, groaned quietly.  
  
Look at you. You helped save the world. More than once. How many times was it your action, your decision, your idea, that saved everyone? And now you're just a drunk, a sad, pitiful drunk.  
  
Like Dad.  
  
Oh, God ....  
  
Xander looked over at the bottle. Much of the remaining scotch had drained into the carpet, a little still remaining.  
  
I need it to be like it was. I need it to be like the times when Buffy and Willow and Giles and I fought demons who were demons, monsters who were monsters. I need to know I'm making a difference again.  
  
I need.  
  
It wasn't more than three minutes later that the phone rang. 


	25. Twenty Four

TWENTY-FOUR  
  
* * *  
  
As he and the girl walked to the house of the Slayer, he remembered the man.  
  
The man who had been.  
  
Not William the Bloody, not the monster who rammed railroad spikes into the heads of those who had criticized his poetry, not the demon who had drank the blood of women who had in life refused him, not even Spike, who had loved Druscilla and Angelus and Darla and the Sex Pistols too and who had eaten that flower child at Woodstock and who saw people as happy meals on legs. No, not him.  
  
But William.  
  
Shy, passionate William. William who had been good, who had fantasized foolishly about wooing a lovely maiden, who had dreamed up stories about standing beside her, about defending her honor, about being a fine, gentlemanly husband to her, who fantasized about writing her beautiful poetry and making gentle love to her.  
  
William.  
  
William who was still inside him, somewhere. Dead, yes, but still there. In the memories, in the desires. You didn't need a soul for that.  
  
Did Nibblet have a soul?  
  
She wasn't human, of course. Not that one. A ball of light, of energy, a key to a lock that was no more. Her memories were less real than the William who lurked around inside of him. A fiction, they were, all of them.  
  
Even his of her.  
  
Is anything real anymore?  
  
Do I love the Slayer?  
  
Or is it William?  
  
Is William why I keep helping these bloody people?  
  
This damn ball of key glowing light?  
  
I don't know.  
  
But Spike did know that he liked Nibblet, even apart from whatever it was he felt for the Slayer. There was a certain innocence to her that didn't exist in other little girls, and he saw more of her mother in her than in her sister. The Slayer was hard, callused, but Nibblet still had that emotion, that feeling, that he had once sensed in Joyce.  
  
Joyce. Now she had been a fine lady. Even when she had cold-cocked him on the head with an axe Spike had been able to see that. A fine lady, true and true. Always courteous, but strong, too. Strong as steel.  
  
Summers women, real or not, had something about them you didn't see all that often.  
  
Something you had to like even when you hated them.  
  
#  
  
So when Nibblet had come to him and had asked for his help, he had said yes right away. He was glad it was her and not Buffy, because with Buffy he would have had to say something sarcastic, would have had to keep up the wall that protected him from her. Nibblet was simpler.  
  
"We've found her. We want your help in case there's trouble."  
  
"Trouble with the witch?" he had asked.  
  
Nibblet nodded.  
  
"Glad to help, though I can't see why you need it. The witch is a big girl."  
  
"We think she needs help."  
  
"Maybe a chance to do some damage?"  
  
Nibblet nodded again.  
  
"Then I'm in. Lead the way." 


	26. Twenty Five

TWENTY-FIVE  
  
* * *  
  
It was quiet in the ward today.  
  
Quiet in the room.  
  
There was, from down the hall, the faint sound of the television in the recreation room, faint with the sound of an innocuous game show, and from time to time the quiet would be broken, just a bit, with the sound of someone talking, or with the noise of a doctor being paged, far away.  
  
But on the whole it was quiet.  
  
Almost restful.  
  
Almost.  
  
Joyce sat in Buffy's room, on a chair pulled up beside the bed. She held a brush in her hand and was gently pulling it through her daughter's hair. This had, in the past weeks, become a ritual between them, and Buffy was quiet too, now, as one stroke followed another, her face peaceful, her eyes on her mother, aware.  
  
Joyce smiled at her. It was a natural thing, coming without thought, just something she could not help but do. Because this was Buffy, her Buffy. Joyce could not help but remember her, moving inside her womb, could not help but remember the pain of labor, the feeling of the birth, the feeling of her baby daughter at her breast. She could not help but think of how sweet Buffy was, that little girl with her dolls and her games, so inventive they were. But most of all Joyce could not help but remember the wonder of it as her daughter became a person, a real person, with likes and dislikes and habits and ways of speaking and walking and dressing and being, uniquely her own.  
  
Her own Buffy.  
  
No pain, no tragedy, no fantasy world of monsters could ever take that away from her.  
  
I am so fortunate, Joyce thought, that you let me share part of who you are.  
  
The brush stroked easily, evenly.  
  
It was quiet in the ward.  
  
Quiet.  
  
How many weeks now? How much time with Dr. Garrett? The new meds?  
  
How long since she had once again become a mother in something more than name?  
  
You lose track of these things, she thought. You even begin to take them for granted. You even begin to think, as you pull the car into the parking lot of the hospital, that you can expect her to smile at you, to recognize you. Even when she doesn't, you think to yourself that this isn't permanent, that next time she will, because this new therapy is working, at least a little. You find that you have been reading things you didn't read before, articles not about schizophrenia but about this thing they call being fantasy prone, about these people who do know the world but who know it differently, who talk to their dolls not because they think their dolls are alive but because they are entities nonetheless, because there is no reason, really, that you can't talk to a doll any more than you can talk to your car, when it won't start.  
  
Buffy used to talk to her dolls. Remember? Before the terror, before the nightmares and the clinic and the meds and the doctors, she would sit happily in her room with them and she would talk to them and she was no crazier then than you were when you were a little girl, because you did the same thing.  
  
The hair was soft, somewhat flat, a bit dirty, yes, as Joyce pulled the brush through it. But it was Buffy's hair, and Buffy was here now, and Buffy was smiling at her. And it was then, at that moment, that the thoughts came to Joyce, came with a certainty she had not before considered.  
  
I will share you with your creations, my lovely daughter. I will share you with them because I love you. More than anything in the universe I love you. And I will fight for you, for your right to them. I will fight your father if I must, will fight the world that says you are crazy for having them. I am always and forever an advocate for you.  
  
#  
  
It was later, that night, after Joyce had gone and the meds had been distributed and the quiet on the ward became that of sedation, that Buffy went away again. 


	27. Twenty Six

TWENTY-SIX  
  
* * *  
  
Four of them.  
  
Walking.  
  
They were close now. It was night, the world a darkness that was more than simply an absence of light. It was a darkness that was itself palpable, real, physical. It was a darkness that you could feel, that even after all their battles in darkness, against things of darkness, still made them uneasy.  
  
Even Spike, though he would not say it.  
  
They were close now.  
  
They had tracked the black van by magic, and by the impressions of its wheels in the mud. Tracked it here, along this small road that wound out of Sunnydale, away from the lights of town. Tracking the three stooges, though no one was calling them that now.  
  
Close.  
  
"I feel them," Tara said quietly. "I can feel her too. She's afraid."  
  
"Where?" asked Buffy.  
  
"Ahead."  
  
There was light ahead, up there. You could just see it now in the gloom. Light and motion among the tall trees.  
  
"All right," Buffy said. "You all know what you have to do?"  
  
They nodded.  
  
It was a simple plan. Buffy and Spike were the heavies. Even though none of the three men they expected to face were a match for them in a fight, the rescuers were in no mood to compromise, and they knew their enemy might have surprises. Buffy and Spike would go in, neutralize them, and Xander and Tara would find and release Willow. Simple as that.  
  
If Warren or Jonathan or Andrew got in the way, you take them down. It doesn't matter how or whether or not they ever get up again. Understand?  
  
That was the plan.  
  
It was still quiet in the woods. They split up, and Buffy and Spike moved off toward the light.  
  
#  
  
The van was there, the black van that had stalked them, that was filled with who knew what. It was parked and locked up; a glance through the windows showed that it was empty.  
  
Spike looked at Buffy, wordlessly slipped a stiletto from his boot, expertly punctured all four tires, poke poke poke poke. The escaping air hissed as they moved again in the direction of the light.  
  
Motion there. The light grew.  
  
Figures.  
  
In a circle.  
  
Four figures.  
  
Buffy saw them and recognized them.  
  
Warren, standing perfectly still, holding a large candle. Jonathan opposite him, holding one likewise. Andrew at a third point, robed, raising his hands to the heavens.  
  
And between them, Willow.  
  
#  
  
She was bound, hand and foot, hog-tied. There was wax on her, dripping from the candles. Her mouth was open, and as Andrew spoke she whimpered in fear, tried and failed to struggle against her bonds.  
  
Buffy saw as a drop of wax fell from Warren's candle and hit her cheek.  
  
And then the slayer was charging forward. 


	28. Twenty Seven

TWENTY-SEVEN  
  
* * *  
  
She hit something, hard, as she closed to them, flew back against a tree. Spike had moved even as she did, yelling as he went, and he too was thrown back. His stiletto then flashed in the air, spinning towards Warren, bouncing off of something invisible and tumbling harmless to the ground.  
  
A shield.  
  
"Tara!" Buffy cried. "I need you!"  
  
Andrew's chanting slowed, and Buffy saw that Warren had taken notice of them.  
  
"Aha. It's the slayer. Look, boys."  
  
Buffy was on her feet, stepping close to the invisible wall. She struck it with her fist; it was like hitting steel.  
  
"Go ahead," Warren mocked. "You can't bring it down, slayer."  
  
He laughed.  
  
"Warren, listen to me. You hurt her, and ...."  
  
"And what? You'll kill me? Oh, my. I don't think so, little girl. When I'm through with you, you'll be begging me to kill you."  
  
Buffy hit the barrier again. Nothing. "Tara!"  
  
Tara's voice, then, soft, nearby.  
  
Latin.  
  
Open, open, open.  
  
Another drop of hot wax tumbled, and Willow cried out as it caught her in the eye. Andrew's chanting grew in intensity.  
  
"Geyrz! Geyrz!"  
  
Buffy moved as Willow cried out again, as she struggled. Buffy eyed Jonathan, pressed her hand against the barrier.  
  
"Jonathan, you can stop this. You know it isn't right. You know you're better than this."  
  
But Jonathan didn't move at all. It was like he wasn't even there.  
  
"Jonathan, listen to me ...."  
  
Warren laughed again. "He knows the score, slayer. You never liked him; you thought you and your pretty friends were the outcasts, but you cut him off just like Cordelia did. I know all about what you've done to him. He knows who his real friends are."  
  
"Geyrz!" Andrew cried suddenly. "We bring you an offering! We, humble slaves to your might, invoke you!"  
  
Something was there now, something close. The air itself seemed not quite right anymore, and then Buffy saw as above Willow, something began to form.  
  
Willow saw it too.  
  
And Willow screamed.  
  
#  
  
Something. Twisted and wrong. A shape, black and gray and swirling, a stench that was death and blood and filth, that Buffy could smell even despite the barrier. A maw, a mouth, fanged and dripping with poison.  
  
A voice, like rusty nails on bone, echoing over the chant, over Tara's futile magics, over Buffy's cries and Willow's screams.  
  
"Who has dared call my name?"  
  
Andrew, his hands raised high, called back.  
  
"Behold, mighty Geyrz! We bring you an offering in supplication! We bring you a witch, most powerful! We implore your favor. Consume!"  
  
"Consume!" Warren cried.  
  
"Consume!"  
  
The thing drew back as Buffy hammered her fists uselessly against the barrier. It regarded Willow, who now, one eye blinded, looked up in terror.  
  
"This one?" the demon hissed.  
  
"Yes!" cried Andrew. "She has great power! Consume!"  
  
The thing called Geyrz reached down, one sickening claw gripping Willow, raising her into the air, holding her as she writhed like a worm on a hook. She was screaming still, the sound of it echoing through the dark forest, as final terror overtook her, as Warren watched with a gleam of joy in his eye, as Jonathan stood unmoving, as Andrew chanted loudly into the night.  
  
"Consume! Consume!"   
  
#  
  
"No!"  
  
Buffy was screaming now, helpless, her hands beating against the barrier, watching as the thing raised her friend to its fangs, hearing the screams, the overwhelming horror, as slowly it brought Willow into its mouth, as inch by inch her friend was drawn into the thing's gullet, struggling in agony as her skin peeled away, her body melting into a mass of jelly, though through it she still lived.  
  
And still screamed.  
  
And still. And still.  
  
And then. 


	29. Twenty Eight

TWENTY-EIGHT  
  
* * *  
  
Silence.  
  
Buffy felt the ground come up, felt it against her bottom as her legs gave way, as behind the barrier there were now only Warren, Jonathan, Andrew and the demon.  
  
They watched. She watched.  
  
And Andrew spoke again.  
  
"Grant us our supplications, mighty Geyrz! Grant us your power and your favor!"  
  
The demon regarded them. The red mass of goo that had moments before been Willow Rosenberg dripped from its jaws.  
  
And then it spoke.  
  
"Deception," it said.  
  
Andrew's eyes went wide. He took a step back.  
  
"No. Mighty Geyrz, we have made you your offering --"  
  
"Deception!"  
  
Something was wrong. All through everything Buffy felt it, as though the universe itself was twisting, contorting, writhing. Wrong wrong wrong. And she gasped for air in this wrongness, this growing horror, as the demon moved now toward Andrew. She heard herself scream as terror washed over his face, as he tried to back away, raising his hands against what he had brought into the world.  
  
"No!" he screamed.  
  
The thing struck quickly, lashing out. Buffy saw in that instant as Andrew now writhed as Willow had, as he fought and struggled, as he screamed again before dying.  
  
Before the explosion from something Warren threw at the thing brought down the barrier and the thing turned on those outside.  
  
"Mighty Geyrz, take these others!" he called. "Consume! Grant my supplication!"  
  
Geyrz turned. From its mouth dripped the remains of two now. Its claws extended, its breath a hissing that echoed loudly in the night, the very sound like acid on the skin, the face, like burning worms inside you.  
  
Buffy scrambled back, saw Spike rush in, saw the demon fling him back and away like so many dry leaves, his body snapping against a nearby tree with a sickening crunch.  
  
"Consume!" Warren screamed.  
  
And then Buffy looked up again.  
  
She saw.  
  
And then it was her scream, in the sudden darkness of pain and terror, and the world was no more.  
  
Forever. 


	30. Twenty Nine

TWENTY-NINE  
  
* * *  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
She blinked.  
  
"Finished?"  
  
Again.  
  
Mirror. Her face there, so familiar. Pretty.  
  
She nodded, closed the lipstick and slipped it into her small silk purse.  
  
With a rustle of her satin skirt, Cynthia leaned toward the mirror and dabbed at her own lips with a bit of gloss. Buffy rose to give her room, looked around.  
  
All was as it should be. The bed, the pillows, the closet door just ajar. A copy of "Your Prom" open on the bed, where a few moments ago the two of them had been reading a last article or two. She looked at Cynthia as she finished.  
  
Cynthia was her oldest and dearest friend in all the world.  
  
They stood together before the mirror; their gowns were new and stylish, their shoes new, their makeup new. They had done each other's hair and now took a moment to admire their success.  
  
"God, we're hot," Cynthia said.  
  
They giggled.  
  
A knock came then, and the door cracked open.  
  
Mom.  
  
"Robert and Chad are here," she said. "Ready?"  
  
"In a minute," Buffy answered. The words seemed just a bit distant and she wondered why.  
  
Mom nodded and closed the door.  
  
They took a few minutes; in one of the articles they had read it talked about making the first entrance when your date came to get you; keep them waiting, just a bit. Let the anticipation build, because this is your night, your prom.  
  
#  
  
They went down at last. She could feel the carpet beneath her shoes, giving just a bit as she walked, as she and Cynthia came down the stairs. And there, at the bottom, were Robert and Chad, each so handsome in his tuxedo, each smiling. And there was Dad, too, with the camera, and the flash in her eyes as he took their picture, she smiling her best smile because she felt so beautiful.  
  
There were more pictures then, and Mom and Dad fussing about how nice they both looked, and then Robert was pinning her corsage on her and the flash was popping again.  
  
And then a moment came and Mom and Cynthia and Robert and Chad were talking in the living room, and she was in the dining room with Dad.  
  
He smiled.  
  
"You know," he said, "I have to wonder what an old kook like me ever did to deserve a beautiful daughter like you."  
  
She felt herself blush.  
  
"Oh, Daddy ...."  
  
He chuckled, reached into his pocket, drew out a slender black box.  
  
"For you," he said.  
  
She took it, opened it.  
  
Bright, sharp light caught her gaze from gems on the necklace inside.  
  
"Daddy?"  
  
He smiled. It was his kind smile, the one she always remembered when she thought of him happy.  
  
"Here." He took the necklace and moved behind her, laid it around her neck, fastened it. Then he faced her again.  
  
"You are my everything, Buffy."  
  
#  
  
They ate, the four of them, at a fine restaurant. It was a beautiful evening; you could see the stars overhead. Robert held her chair for her when she sat down and Chad did likewise for Cynthia, and as they ate they talked.  
  
School, college, the future.  
  
This was good, and when they had finished they drove over to the gymnasium, parked and went inside.  
  
And time became unimportant.  
  
She was in his arms, his touch gentle as they danced, holding her close, and there was no need for words, no need for anything but the eternity that was this moment, that was she, good, loved and beautiful all through.  
  
The night was perfect, under the quiet light of the sparkling ball overhead.  
  
#  
  
In time they moved from the dance floor, and he brought her some punch. Cynthia was there, and they smiled and talked and laughed a bit. Others came by, visited. Friends and other friends, and then, across the way, Mom.  
  
Mom.  
  
#  
  
She looked out of place there. She was dressed as she had been at home, in pants and a blouse and a sweater. And there was something more, too, about how she stood, how she looked around the gymnasium.  
  
"Is that your mom, Buffy?" Cynthia asked.  
  
Buffy nodded.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"What's she doing here?"  
  
Buffy set down her glass of punch, took a step forward.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
Just as Mom saw her.  
  
They met in the low light. Mom's face was drawn.  
  
"Mom?"  
  
"Buffy. I'm sorry. We have to go. Now."  
  
"Mom? What is it?"  
  
Mom's face tensed, her body with it.  
  
"I'm sorry, sweetie. There's been an accident. Your father ...." 


	31. Thirty

THIRTY  
  
* * *  
  
Screaming.  
  
Just screaming.  
  
It shattered the still air around her, echoing forever. Not only fear, this scream. Not only shock. Not only pain and not only anguish and not only rage. More than these, and all of them; more than they could be.  
  
Screaming.  
  
Shattered.  
  
There was motion around her, motion away. From just the corner of her eye she saw Annie, eyes wide in terror, scrambling off. Others too, just shadows, just fading things, for Buffy felt herself slipping away, felt it all crumbling, all semblance of reason and right in the universe dissolving. There was no escape now, no sanctuary. Only the yawning pit remained, and as she screamed again Buffy felt herself plunging forward into it, into the maelstrom that was despair.  
  
Somewhere, in a place she was, there was more.  
  
Watch now.  
  
Her, running, away away away, from where her best and truest friend Willow has been consumed by a thing that is an infinity of darkness. Far back somewhere, there is the voice of Xander, calling after her, fading even as he does into nothing, as her legs carry her and she flees, blind to what lies ahead.  
  
Her, in the ward, fists against the walls, fingers scratching at them, fingernails tearing away, as she screams, as the blood from her fingers painting a shimmering image of eternal pain along the faded white walls.  
  
Her, in the gymnasium, in her beautiful new gown, crumbling to her knees. Somewhere nearby Cynthia, her best and truest friend, calling to her. Somewhere nearby her mother, reaching for her, but there is nothing.  
  
For there is not death in merely one world, in merely one way. No.  
  
Everything is death.  
  
Everything is pain.  
  
All that there can be, all that there is, all that there ever will be, is agony, sharp and cold and forever.  
  
Screaming in the shattered panes of reality. 


	32. Thirty One

THIRTY-ONE  
  
* * *  
  
They lowered the coffin slowly, and the earth accepted it as though into the arms of a lover.  
  
"And so we commit to the earth the mortal remains of Henry William Summers, beloved son, beloved husband, beloved father. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."  
  
She watched as Joyce, her face veiled in black, took a handful of dirt and, trembling slightly, threw it into the gaping hole. Those with shovels followed.  
  
#  
  
Later now, at their home. People there, gathered. Awkward silence. Some friends, family, sitting, talking softly, as though to speak in their normal tones would somehow offend.  
  
They were strangers, all of them. She felt out of place, just standing in a corner in her black dress, just watching and wishing there was more she could do.  
  
Joyce?  
  
Upstairs, with her sister.  
  
It's hard. My name's Bob. I worked with him. He was a good guy, a good friend. He'd do anything for you, work holidays, whatever.  
  
She nodded.  
  
It was all like a bad dream.  
  
#  
  
In time, people began to go. She waited as they did, not moving from her corner as one stranger after another filtered away, until it was only family that remained.  
  
Joyce was here now and she looked at her.  
  
"Thank you," she said.  
  
She nodded.  
  
"You didn't have to come. Thank you."  
  
She spoke for the first time since arriving.  
  
"I thought I should. I thought I could be here for her."  
  
Joyce smiled. The weight, Cynthia thought, watching her. How much can she endure? How much must she?  
  
"I know she'll appreciate it, Cynthia."  
  
Cynthia nodded. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Summers. I'm so sorry about it all."  
  
Joyce blinked, her eyes already red with tears, reached for her and hugged her. Close. They held for a long time. Then at last they drew back.  
  
"How is she?" Cynthia asked.  
  
"No change," Joyce said.  
  
Cynthia nodded again, looked down. "I wish --"  
  
Joyce watched her, reached out and touched away the tear that had suddenly erupted and run down her cheek.  
  
"What is it, Cynthia?"  
  
"I wish I could help her. I wish there was something I could do."  
  
Joyce, here eyes shimmering from her weeping, answered softly.  
  
"Maybe there is," she said. "Will you come with me today?"  
  
#  
  
She had never been in one of these places before, and felt frightened, out of place in her black dress. They passed the admissions desk, were led by an orderly down a long, white hall. There was a common room over there, a television flickering in one corner. A few patients watched it. One noted their passing and looked at them as they did. She was middle aged, her blond hair looking singed, almost burned, her eyes burning with a fierce intensity.  
  
Cynthia looked away.  
  
A door. Joyce pushed it open, stepped inside. Cynthia followed.  
  
A bed, there. Just like any other bed. No straps or restraints or other clichés. Just a bed. And there, sitting atop the bed, just sitting and staring, was her best and truest friend.  
  
Buffy.  
  
It was dim in here, the shades drawn as though the sunlight might hurt her. Dim and quiet, too. Joyce stepped forward, toward the bed, but Cynthia suddenly found herself frozen, unable to move.  
  
Buffy did not react to her mother as she sat. She stared straight ahead, eyes sometimes blinking, but that was all. Her hair, her lovely blonde hair that Cynthia had helped to primp only last week, was flat now, dull in the dim light, hanging straight, some strands running over her face, moving slowly with her breathing. Her hands did not move but only lay on her crossed thighs, themselves obscured by the gray, featureless hospital pajamas she wore.  
  
Cynthia remembered a sleepover, one of many. Buffy's pajamas had been silk then.  
  
Joyce was looking over at her.  
  
"Come closer, dear. Let's let her see you."  
  
Cynthia did, her feet moving awkwardly, until she was at the bedside and sitting. She looked closer at Buffy.  
  
"Look, Buffy," Joyce said. "It's Cynthia. She's come to say hello."  
  
Buffy didn't move, didn't respond.  
  
Cynthia smiled, the effort of it showing on her young face. "I miss you," she managed to say, but that was all.  
  
She remembered what Joyce had said to her; when was it? Two days, three days ago? A breakdown. The grief, the shock, was more than she could bear. She's in a hospital now. The doctors are trying to help her.  
  
Will she be all right?  
  
We're going to do everything we can.  
  
School then. In the halls, walking. Everyone had seen, everyone who had been at the prom, and they asked: Is she all right? What have you heard? Cynthia said nothing, and she knew they were talking about her now.  
  
Graduation was tomorrow.  
  
And her best and truest friend in all the world wouldn't be there. 


	33. Thirty Two

THIRTY-TWO  
* * *  
  
He wondered why, after nearly six years of fighting demons, this place should make him so uneasy. Maybe it was the uncanny normalcy of the place, the knowledge that the people here, the lost, injured people here, were not so different from him, not so different at all.  
  
We are injured too, he thought. Always injured. Life does that.  
  
So why live?  
  
The people here, some of them at least, had tried to answer that question. A bottle of pills, a razor blade, a jump off a high building or a bridge; all ways of answering.  
  
Maybe they're the sane ones.  
  
Her room was the same as last time. Just a bed, the tightly shuttered window. He knocked gently, hoping to hear her voice, then let himself in when there was no answer.  
  
She was on the bed, sitting cross-legged in the gray hospital pajamas, staring out into nothingness. What do you see? he wondered, when you stare like that? Are you looking for her?  
  
Her.  
  
My best friend. I should be the one in here. God, why? Why, like that?  
  
For he had seen. He had seen it all, had heard the screams that not even a bottle of gin every night could now quiet. Six years of fighting hell, and nothing, ever, could compare with what he had seen happen in that glade.  
  
He went to her bed, sat down in the chair beside it. She didn't move, didn't stir.  
  
"Hi, Buffy," he said.  
  
Nothing. Nothing he hadn't come to expect.  
  
"It's me. Xander."  
  
She blinked, once. Nothing more.  
  
"We miss you," he said then. "You don't have to worry about Dawn; Tara is taking care of her. Giles is helping. Spike is doing the best he can." He shrugged. "I've even got Anya trying to take care of me."  
  
His voice broke. He wanted to tell her more, tell her what he had seen, that there was no more Warren to worry about, or Andrew, because whatever it was that they had summoned, it had gotten the both of them. He had seen it. And Jonathan, too, he was sure, last seen unmoving as the thing closed in on him, and it was all he and Spike and Tara could do to get away from it, just like it had been all she could do.  
  
Not even the Slayer could match it, whatever it was.  
  
Gone now. Everything there gone with it. The trees, the black van, everything. Just gone.  
  
Willow.  
  
Oh, God, Will, I'm so sorry.  
  
How do I tell her folks? It's like Jesse again. All my friends ....  
  
He looked back at Buffy. You're still my friend, aren't you?  
  
Please come back to me, my friend. 


	34. Thirty Three

THIRTY-THREE  
  
* * *  
  
Even the veterans, those most jaded, remembered. Even they talked about it.  
  
Blood. On the walls, the floor. Bloody hands, forearms. Everywhere.  
  
Screaming.  
  
An orderly with a broken arm as he had tried to restrain her.  
  
Never saw anything like it. When they say "crazy", that's what they mean.  
  
Wasn't she on meds?  
  
She sure is now. Isolation, too, and restraints. 24 hour watch.  
  
Crazy.  
  
#  
  
Garrett didn't like that word, never had. Crazy was a luxury the mentally ill could ill afford. To be crazy and live meant you had to know yourself as few of them could, because they were sick. Sick, not crazy.  
  
He reminded the staff of this. His tone was not gentle.  
  
"I don't want to hear that word again. Especially not around the patients. Do you understand?"  
  
They were cowed and nodded.  
  
Garrett moved away from the nursing station, down the hall to the office he shared with Edwards. How do I explain? he wondered. How do I look the parents in the eye and tell them that they have to stay the course, that for her sake the blood and the screaming and the horror have to be allowed to go on? They will want her to be like she was before, just another piece of furniture. They will prefer the slow death to the agonizing gasps for life.  
  
He had seen it before.  
  
They were there when he arrived, sitting. He could sense the tension in the room right away, and as he sat he saw the smoldering rage in the father's eyes.  
  
"What happened?" the man growled.  
  
"There was an incident last night," Garrett answered evenly.  
  
"Is that what you people call it now?"  
  
Garrett avoided the barb. "She's currently stable," he said. "We have her sedated, and we're watching her."  
  
"Stable?" Hank hissed. "You call this stable?"  
  
"I do. She can't hurt herself, and I don't think she would even if she could. The outburst is over and chances are all she wants now is rest and quiet. I hope to resume therapy within the next few days."  
  
The man's eyes went wide. "Therapy? You want to do more of this to her? You want to put her through this again?"  
  
Garret fixed his gaze on Hank Summers, winced inwardly at the molten hostility that his eyes returned. "Mr. Summers, I know this is hard. I know you love Buffy and I know you want what is best for her. But I want you to understand that she is fighting for her life here. Everything she knows hangs in the balance, and that is more than you or I can know. We have to trust her and we have to keep up with the therapy."  
  
"Your therapy is going to kill her," Hank spat. "You've been killing her from the beginning. When she cuts her own throat or throws herself off the roof, are you going to still tell me she just needs more therapy? You keep telling her that she can live in her dreams, and it's killing her."  
  
"Mr. Summers ...."  
  
"Shut up. You're going to listen to me now, Dr. Garrett. You and all your fancy degrees and your fancy hospitals are killing my daughter, and you think I'm just going to let you do it? Well let me tell you this: You are not going anywhere near Buffy, ever again, do you understand me? We're going to get her to different hospital and we're going to find someone who doesn't play games with her head and by God I'm going to sue the shit out of you for what you've done. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?"  
  
Garrett watched the man. He could do it, of course. A malpractice suit probably wouldn't go far, but there were plenty of lawyers who would take the case, would tie him and the hospital up for years in litigation. And when Buffy slipped back into catatonia, that would just get added to the charges.  
  
But he couldn't be angry with Hank Summers. You tried, he thought, as though talking to the man. You never stopped loving her and it hurts more than any pain you've ever felt to see her suffer. It may be hard to believe but for this I respect you. Even as you condemn your daughter to hell I must respect you.  
  
Garrett sighed. This happened sometimes, knowing even as he tried one last time that he would fail.  
  
"Mr. Summers, please. There is still hope. She's fighting now, and that's hope."  
  
"Shut up! I said shut up! We are taking her out of here, do you understand? You get that paperwork and you sign it, do you hear me?"  
  
Garrett sighed again, nodded. That was it, then. Last card played. Game over.  
  
Until another voice, soft, intruded.  
  
"No." 


	35. Thirty Four

THIRTY-FOUR  
  
* * *  
  
Both men turned. Joyce was sitting, still sitting, quiet, her gaze focused straight ahead, neither on her husband or on Garrett. They too went silent, as again she spoke.  
  
"No."  
  
Hank now.  
  
"Joyce --"  
  
She turned her head and looked at him, at Hank, and her eyes were red and wet with tears. And as she spoke again her voice firmed.  
  
"No. She stays here."  
  
"Joyce," Hank said, "you're not yourself. I know it's hard. We're going to get her help, going to get her out of here." His voice trailed off and he looked over at Garrett, his eyes still hard in anger.  
  
"No," Joyce said. "Buffy stays here. She gets her chance."  
  
Hank shook his head. "I'm her father, Joyce. I'm not letting this quack hurt her any more. I'm taking her out of here, and that's all there is to it."  
  
He moved toward the door, his shoulders hunched, arms stiff at his sides, his hands in fists. And as he passed her chair, Joyce reached out, her own hand open, and just touched his wrist.  
  
The touch stopped him short. As he turned Joyce had risen, and now she faced him.  
  
"Buffy stays," she said. "We let her try."  
  
Hank's voice grew low.  
  
"Don't cross me, Joyce. Don't."  
  
Her hand was still touching his wrist. It almost seemed to hold him there, as though it anchored him in place.  
  
"I am her mother," Joyce said. "She stays."  
  
Hank was silent for a moment. The explosion that followed came like a point of staccato.  
  
"And what the hell am I? You think I'm nothing, Joyce? You think I don't love her?"  
  
Joyce's voice was soft, almost calm, and it trembled a bit as she spoke. "I know you do, Hank. I know you love her. But I think Dr. Garrett is right. She's fighting, don't you see? For the first time in years she's actually fighting. We can't give up on her now. She stays."  
  
Now Hank snapped his arm away. "No! I will not let this bastard kill her, do you understand? He is going to sign the goddamn papers, and we are going to take her somewhere where she gets better, and that's it! If you don't love her enough to do it, then I will! Do you understand me?"  
  
The next seconds happened quickly. Hank, moving for the door, Garrett just watching, saying nothing, wondering perhaps what he should do.  
  
And Joyce, reaching out, her hand not gentle this time, gripping her husband's arm just below the shoulder and pulling him back, off balance and almost off his feet, throwing him down and into his chair. And Joyce, her eyes wide with rage and fear and love, over him, towering, and screaming.  
  
"God damn you! God damn you! Don't you dare! Don't you dare tell me I don't love her! Don't you dare tell me I'm not looking out for her! So help me God if you ever say I don't love her again I will rip your goddamn head off! Do you understand me, Hank Summers?"  
  
Hank was suddenly white, his hands gripping the arms of the chair in terror. Garrett moved forward then, stood close to her. He tried, with limited success, to keep his voice calm.  
  
"It's all right, Joyce. You're both her legal guardians. We can't release her if you say we can't. All right?"  
  
She turned, slowly, to him. Garrett suddenly felt very small, facing this formidable woman, and he thought without intending to of her daughter, of the strength he sensed in Buffy, and he understood. He tensed a bit as she spoke.  
  
But the voice of Joyce Summers was now a whisper, almost like a that of a child.  
  
"Please," she said to him. "Help her." 


	36. Thirty Five

THIRTY-FIVE  
  
* * *  
  
It was always hard to go in.  
  
He thought of surgeons at times like this, cutting someone open and tinkering with a heart, repairing a bone, removing a tumor. Just get in and get out and let the body heal itself. Most of medicine is really just letting us heal ourselves.  
  
And so sometimes Garrett found himself envying the surgeons, the relative simplicity of their work. How do you heal yourself when what is broken is the very thing you need for the healing, when it is the mind that that is injured?  
  
The door opened heavily and he stepped inside. She was on the floor, wrapped in a straitjacket, and he tensed a bit as he saw her in it. He had never liked restraints, even when they were necessary, and the straitjacket was like something out of a horror movie, constricting, binding, terrifying. He would have preferred that they let her out of it now, but the memory of the orderly and his broken arm was still fresh in the minds of the staff and he had been overruled.  
  
Garrett stepped to her, crouched before her.  
  
"Hello, Buffy."  
  
She didn't react right away, and he wondered where she was. Finally she answered slowly.  
  
"Dead," she said.  
  
His gaze didn't flinch. At least she was talking.  
  
"Dead?"  
  
Now she looked at him, her face cut by loose strands of her blonde hair. She seemed far away behind its bars.  
  
"Dead."  
  
"Who's dead, Buffy?"  
  
"Everyone."  
  
He paused. "Including me? Including you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"How do you know this?"  
  
She looked away. So thin and so tired, he thought. There is no respite in her war.  
  
"Because everyone dies," she said then. "Always and always. It's everywhere."  
  
"Death."  
  
"Yes."  
  
He nodded now, sat down cross-legged on the padded floor before her. She watched him as he did, her eyes wary.  
  
"That's true," he said. "But it's nothing you haven't known for a long time. But two days ago it was something more, wasn't it? Can you tell me what happened?"  
  
Her head fell forward a bit, the long, dirty strands of her hair hanging loosely before her. For several minutes she didn't speak, and Garrett remained silent. Finally a few words came.  
  
"She died."  
  
"Who did, Buffy?"  
  
"Willow. I tried to save her but she died. They always die."  
  
"Willow. Your best friend?"  
  
Buffy looked over at him.  
  
"Cynthia is my best friend."  
  
A new name. Garrett kept his face calm.  
  
"Cynthia. Can you tell me about Cynthia, Buffy?"  
  
Again, nothing, then a little.  
  
"My dad died. I was with Cynthia, and --"  
  
Garrett tried to place Buffy's father now. In her other world he had run away, she said, had not even contacted them when her mother died, had abandoned her and Dawn. But who was Cynthia?  
  
Slowly, Garrett began to probe, his words gentle, and slowly a few answers came. Cynthia, her oldest and dearest friend. They were at the prom, and then Mom was there, and Dad was dead. A car accident on the way home from something, just a few hours after he had given her a beautiful necklace.  
  
Mom was there? Wasn't Mom dead? He asked this carefully.  
  
"Your mother and father are still married?"  
  
Buffy nodded. She seemed very distant.  
  
"Yes. But he died. And they got divorced and he ran away, and now it's just me and Dawn and Willow is dead. I let her die. I let him die. They all die."  
  
Garrett watched her. He was beginning to understand. "You know me, don't you, Buffy? You know my name?"  
  
"You're Dr. Garrett. Your son died."  
  
Garrett closed his eyes. It shouldn't hurt, but it always did. Had he been right to tell her? Had she misunderstood?  
  
"Yes," he said. "He did."  
  
"I'm sorry. I wish I could save him. But I can't save anyone."  
  
Garrett looked at her again, blinking a bit to make his vision clear. Pain, he thought. There's always pain. Life is always pain. For even a few seconds of love we pay such a terrible price. But we never stop seeking love, despite it.  
  
He swallowed heavily, formed his next words carefully.  
  
"I'm sorry about Willow and your father, Buffy. I want to help you, if I can. Can you tell me how Willow died?"  
  
She looked at him again and he thought suddenly that she was reading his pain just as he read hers. And then, slowly, she began to speak. 


	37. Thirty Six

THIRTY-SIX  
  
* * *  
  
They came and went for many days, all like shadows, memories, pieces of a whole she could not fully picture. Mom and Dad, looking tired, worn, angry, helpless. Xander and Giles and Dawn and Tara, Dawn crying a lot and Xander less and Giles looking like he wanted to, and Tara just smiling at her in that lost way she always did, caressing her cheek kindly, her face too drawn in its own pain for tears, too empty in sadness. Cynthia and Mom, talking to her, trying to smile, trying to talk a little, as though she would answer.  
  
But she didn't. Not for any of them.  
  
They were shadows, unreal, distant.  
  
There was no world. It was all a lie.  
  
But it was all there was.  
  
Almost.  
  
Garrett.  
  
Garrett came and when he was there the world was there, a room with a bed where they kept her arms and legs fastened down sometimes, where other shadows appeared and disappeared, too faint to even have names. But it was there, the world was, there and fixed because of him, solid and substantial whenever he came into the room.  
  
What are you? she wanted to ask, but the words never came.  
  
Other words did.  
  
I am Buffy. I am. I am.  
  
Stories. I am stories.  
  
I was a cheerleader in junior high. I went to Emory High School. I went to Johnson High School. My best friend is Cynthia. I slay vampires and save the world. My sister Dawn is a key of glowing energy. My best friend was Willow, who is dead now because I couldn't protect her. My dad died in a car wreck and my mom is sad. My mom died and I found her on the sofa. My mom and dad are sad because I am crazy. Sometimes I hear voices. Did you know that vampires and demons are real?  
  
Stories, over and over, making no sense, having no pattern. Just stories.  
  
I am Buffy.  
  
I am.  
  
I am. 


	38. Thirty Seven

THIRTY-SEVEN  
  
* * *  
  
And days became weeks and the ward with its struggle went on. Xander visited often, often bringing Dawn, and there was no change. The doctors had tried medication, other therapies. It looks like shock, they said. Something really shocked her.  
  
I'll say, Xander thought, but he said nothing because he knew there was nothing they could do for her. He had been there.  
  
Joyce and Cynthia visited a lot too. The doctors knew what the shock was, and they tried what they could, but to no avail. We'll keep trying, they said.  
  
It's like she's somewhere else, Cynthia thought one day.  
  
And Joyce and Hank visited. Hank burned with hate and envy; hate that his little girl was back the way she had been, envy when he learned that only with Dr. Garrett would she talk.  
  
Only with Dr. Garrett.  
  
But this at least was something. And Joyce had told him to leave her here, to let Garrett try. She had told him she would divorce him if he interfered, and Hank couldn't bear the thought of losing both his daughter and his wife, and so gave in.  
  
Progress, such as it was, came slowly.  
  
#  
  
They were back in Edwards' office. Garrett had wanted to hold sessions here as quickly as possible, to get her out of the bare, dull rooms of the ward, get some color back into her life. He had learned a lot these past weeks, about Cynthia and Mom and Dad, and about what had happened on prom night, and what had happened in the glade when the demon had eaten Willow.  
  
What does it mean? he wondered. Does it mean anything?  
  
He asked her this one day when she seemed fairly lucid.  
  
"They died," she said.  
  
"That's all? What does it mean to you, Buffy, that they died?"  
  
"You should know that," she told him.  
  
"My son?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"No meaning, then."  
  
She nodded again.  
  
Garrett sighed. He thought of mourning, of what it felt like and what it was. We can't let go quickly, but we do let go, most of us. We have to. The dead must be allowed to rest, and the living must be allowed to live.  
  
Have I let myself live?  
  
And what is life, as opposed to death?  
  
These questions troubled him for some time.  
  
And then, in her eyes and dreams and fears and sadness, he began to see. 


	39. Thirty Eight

THIRTY-EIGHT  
  
* * *  
  
She would walk when they led her now, just shuffling, looking beaten down. Her fingers were healing and they had removed the bandages; the new nails were growing in stubborn defiance of all else, but if she felt the pain of it, this never showed. When he asked her how her fingers felt, she simply shrugged.  
  
"They're healing," he remarked. "I can see it."  
  
"It doesn't matter," she said.  
  
Garrett pulled up a chair and sat across from her. "Doesn't it?" he asked. "Fingernails are stubborn, you know. Even after death they keep growing for a while, like they don't know it's time to stop. I've always found that remarkable."  
  
Death was a taboo subject with many patients; too many were trying to die and there was always a fear of implanting the idea of it. But Buffy lived death. As a vampire slayer she killed and saw killing. As a psychiatric patient she made regular company with people who had tried without success to kill themselves. As a daughter she had lost parents.  
  
Which of these deaths were real?  
  
Did it matter?  
  
So they talked, openly, about death.  
  
"Fingernails are stupid," Buffy said now. "If they had any sense they'd see it's all futile."  
  
"Is it?" Garrett asked.  
  
She watched him for a moment, as though trying to gauge him.  
  
"Death is everywhere," she said.  
  
She said this a lot, as they talked. It always came back to death.  
  
"So is life," he answered.  
  
"So?"  
  
He sighed, sat back in his chair. "Listen," he said then. "I have a choice, Buffy. I wake up every morning because my heart and my lungs and my body decide I'm going to live for another day. I could die that day, or the next, or not. So while I'm alive I choose to be alive, for better or for worse. And when the day is over, I've lived it as well as I could, and nothing in the universe can take away that day. Not even death. Doesn't a good day make life worth living, Buffy?"  
  
#  
  
She felt the closeness of his words, rippling through the strange reality that was here, that was this office and that was him. He was the only reality now, she knew, and this terrified her. The slayer, the crazy girl, the pretty girl in her prom dress, these and more were gone, had been burned up and torn down and crushed under the unending weight of pain.  
  
Pain. Pain was life. Life was pain.  
  
It was the one constant. Mom, Dad, Willow. How many more? How many more deaths would she have to endure? Dawn, Xander, Cynthia, Giles, Tara? Garrett? And that's what Garrett didn't understand, even though because of his son he should. It was all pain, because in the end it was always death, always forever. You loved and you hurt because you loved.  
  
She reminded him of this.  
  
"What about your son?"  
  
He got that look, that look she knew well. Even you, mighty Dr. Garrett who makes the world real now, even you are not above the pain. Remember that.  
  
"My son," he said. "More than eight years. Day after day, I got to know him. Eight and a half years of that remarkable person who he was, sharing his life with me. Do you know what a blessing his life was to me, Buffy?"  
  
The words sank deep and she trembled, looked around for an escape. But there was no escape, not from this one.  
  
"Nothing can ever take away those eight and a half years, Buffy. Not even the pain."  
  
The fear was building now, from deep within her, building and building and building. Terror at his words, his words becoming her own; Mom, Dad, Willow. Every day, every smile, every moment shared.  
  
And in that sharing, a giving of oneself, a vulnerability, a small dying when they died. Unfair, wrong, evil, unjust!  
  
"And the pain is good?" she snapped at him. "That makes the pain all right? That makes it all right that they all died?"  
  
"No." Garrett shook his head. "No. But it is real. Buffy, I want you to listen to me now, and I want you to listen carefully. You have a disease called schizophrenia, and you need to take medication to control it, and that disease affects how you see the world. I believe also that you are fantasy prone, which means you can create realities. The schizophrenia is a sickness, which we now can treat, but being fantasy prone is not. Fine. But there is one other thing I am absolutely certain of, that I want you to know."  
  
She watched him, saying nothing. He spoke again.  
  
"You are not crazy, Buffy." 


	40. Thirty Nine

THIRTY-NINE  
  
* * *  
  
She drew back, surprised. Crazy, they all said. She had always heard it, from those days in school when things had started to go wrong, when she was first called to be the slayer and everyone looked at her and giggled at her behind her back because she carried a stake in her purse. The days in Sunnydale, when Cordelia and Harmony and even Xander and Willow looked at her like she was mad. And even with the love, there were the faces of Mom and Dad and Cynthia, and these faces told all.  
  
Crazy. Crazy Buffy.  
  
Garrett was watching her closely. She realized as he did that this was her last defense, held deep and dear, her last hope that it could all make sense, that all the contradictions in reality could be rationalized, that all the years of who she was could really be.  
  
But the breach was made. She moved quickly to seal it.  
  
"I am," she said weakly. "You know I am."  
  
He shook his head.  
  
"No. You are sane, Buffy. Sick, yes, and your sickness makes reality confusing and difficult sometimes. But I see past that now. I see the real you. I see it through the pain. There's no hiding anymore."  
  
Buffy drew up her knees, pulled her arms to her chest defensively, the way she had used to do. Just sit. Just sit. If you just sit he can't hurt you. You can just sit and then it will be all right. You will save the world, will save Mom and Willow and Xander and Giles, you will wear that beautiful gown and the necklace Dad gave you and go to the prom with Cynthia and Robert and Chad. You will be all right, Buffy, if you just sit.  
  
There will be no pain.   
  
But Willow is dead. Mom is dead. Dad is dead.  
  
The pain is everywhere.  
  
"Please ...." she whispered, but there was no escaping now.  
  
Garrett was smiling, just a bit, and he nodded slightly.  
  
"You see it too, don't you, Buffy?"  
  
"No!" she cried.  
  
"Yes." Garrett sighed now, a sigh that told of relief, of calm. And after a moment he spoke again. "You know, Buffy, there are patients in this hospital who think life is perfect, that it always has to have a happy ending. They dream of heaven and insist that it is right here, right now. Every thought they have tells them that the world must be flawless. Everything has to fit their idea of the perfect family, the perfect town, the perfect friends, the perfect loves. Nothing must ever really go wrong, and everything must be solved easily and simply. There is no gray in their lives; if it isn't good, it's bad. Some of them have spent their lives trying to force their families and friends into molds that will make them perfect, sterile, antiseptic, and they have destroyed their friends and families and themselves by doing so, and they don't even know it until it's too late. Their realities are pain free, and dead."  
  
Dead. Buffy was trembling now, held in place by his awful words as they dug deeply into her.  
  
"And they are crazy," Garrett said. "They are the ones who can't see reality. But not you."  
  
It was silent for a time. Then Buffy asked the question that had never gone away.  
  
"What is real?"  
  
Garrett shrugged. "Does it matter? I think this place is real, but I've got a bias. Reality is as much what you make it as it is atoms and molecules. Whatever realities you have, Buffy, they all share the one thing that makes you sane."  
  
It came to her then, realization, and she spoke.  
  
"The pain?"  
  
"Yes. The pain. The honest, real pain. Somewhere, despite the schizophrenia and despite being fantasy prone, there is that Buffy Summers who understands that life isn't perfect. She understands that life has pain and risk and uncertainty, and that these things are a part of life. She also understands that without pain, joy loses its meaning. Maybe you create every reality you experience, including this one, including the reality where you are a slayer, including the reality where you just went to the prom. Maybe the real Buffy Summers is somewhere else entirely. Being fantasy prone means you can do this. Having schizophrenia means you may get lost in one or more of these universes. But in every one of these created universes, Buffy, you always create as well the reality of good and bad. You refuse to accept a universe that isn't honest, and that is a sign that you are sane, despite your sickness. You understand that if every story has to have a happy ending, there is no point in having stories at all."  
  
Buffy suddenly felt the tears come, and she brought her hands up to her face and sobbed. Because it was true, and there was no hiding from this truth. I am Buffy Summers, she thought. I am she. Whatever else exists, there is always her.  
  
And he's right. She knows what reality really is.  
  
She sobbed again, though, because there was no escape now, not now or ever. It did not matter where she was, what life she led or chose to lead, because pain would always be there. Garrett handed her a tissue, and she blew her nose, looking up at him in the anguish of her realization.  
  
"But sometimes, just sometimes ... maybe?" she asked.  
  
Garrett understood and nodded. "Sometimes," he said. "Sometimes good happens too. Sometimes miracles happen. Just as there is pain in the universe, there is also joy. Pain without joy would also be meaningless. Not all endings need to be sad ones." 


	41. Forty

FORTY  
  
* * *  
  
He sat quietly, one foot propped up, resting his elbow against the knee, chin in hand, staring. It was easy to do this, despite the fact there was nothing to stare at, and he found that he actually enjoyed it, enjoyed the chance to think, to relax, to do nothing.  
  
How long had it been since he had been able to do that?  
  
From time to time, however, he would move a bit, turning his head and glancing at what lay behind him. There was no change each time, nothing new or different to see, but he supposed it was early yet and he shouldn't expect anything.  
  
He turned his gaze forward again.  
  
The question of time came again. How long had it been? Long enough? Would it ever be long enough?  
  
He thought about this for a long while.  
  
Probably not. There was no going back, of course, no undoing what he had done. And as he sat, he realized that he was all right with this, that the price he would pay was worth it, in the end. Not for the reasons one might think, but for deeper ones, more profound ones. He had learned, he realized, this valuable lesson at last.  
  
Moments passed in the silence.  
  
The only judge you have to really answer to, in the end, is yourself. The pain inflicted by others, the neglect, the cruelty, all that is nothing compared to what you do to yourself.  
  
He saw as well, then, sitting there, the cost of this lesson. For him it had come higher than most; very well. But all had to learn it, had to pay. Those who did not, who thought they could escape who they were, who thought that they need not answer to themselves, paid an even dearer price than he had.  
  
He had known such people well.  
  
And for the first time he could remember, he felt no regrets.  
  
I did what I had to do.  
  
#  
  
Some time later there was motion behind him, and he turned again to look. Reality was different here and he wondered for a moment if that was affecting things. The motion, as he watched, was joined by a moan, and now he climbed from the driver's seat, turning his back to the swirls of nothingness that played outside the windshield, and moved back to the rear of the van.  
  
She stirred as he held her head up in his lap, bringing a cup of water to her lips.  
  
Her eyes fluttered open.  
  
"Jonathan?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
She tensed then, tried to pull away, but she was still weak from the drugs, still groggy.  
  
"It's all right," he said. "You're all right."  
  
His voice calmed her. He was glad for that; the last thing he needed was for her to let loose with some of her magics, not here, wherever this place was.  
  
Limbo.  
  
Maybe. Names don't matter, really. A rose, you know, by any other name ....  
  
Willow looked up at him again. He wondered how he looked to her, in his black turtleneck and pants, his black boots. A villain? An archnemesis? How had he ever looked to her, all those years in school when even she had been higher on the social scale than he was?  
  
Short, boring, miserable Jonathan. The school joke.  
  
No matter. What she thought of him, what any of them thought, didn't matter anymore.  
  
She moved a bit and he helped her get more comfortable. The back of the van was warm, smelling a bit of her, of her long captivity. He listened as she spoke again.  
  
"Jonathan, I don't understand."  
  
"It's all right," he said again. "I got you out. They never suspected a thing."  
  
"Warren? Andrew?"  
  
His voice darkened.  
  
"Gone."  
  
"How?"  
  
He gave her a smile. "Hey, I'm the guy who changed the whole world, remember? Changing one corner of one forest was easy. You know magic. You know what it can do. If everyone hadn't been so interested in seeing what they wanted to see, they would have known that you and I and this van weren't really there. But people usually just see what they want to, don't they?"  
  
She looked at him for a long time and he saw that she understood what he meant. Then she nodded.  
  
"Yes," she said, "that's true."  
  
#  
  
After a few more hours she was able to sit up, and he took out the picnic lunch he had packed and shared it with her. She ate hungrily and chuckled when he mentioned that he had made sure it was all kosher. When they had finished the two of them moved up to the front seats and stared for a while out into the swirls of nothingness.  
  
"Where are we?" she asked him.  
  
"Different dimension," he said. "People are always looking for and talking about demon dimensions. They always want to find places with hellgods or monsters. But there are millions of other places that get ignored, like this one. I found it because it was what I was looking for, when I started."  
  
"What was that?"  
  
"A place where there was nothing. I figured I'd be at home here."  
  
She looked at him now for several minutes.  
  
"Are you?" she asked.  
  
"No."  
  
She went silent.  
  
"When I found this place," he said then, "I never told anyone. I used to come here a lot, when --"  
  
His voice trailed off.  
  
"How long?" she asked finally.  
  
"It's hard to say. Time moves differently here. We'll have to go back soon, though. That's the thing about limbo: it won't let you stay forever."  
  
"I guess nothing is forever, is it?"  
  
"Nothing worth having, except that one thing." He leaned forward to start the van, and she reached out and just touched his arm.  
  
"Jonathan," she said, "Thank you."  
  
The engine kicked on, the haze outside faded, and then, in a flash of light, the van hit the pavement, tires gripping asphalt, and accelerated down the empty road. A sign, passing quickly, put Sunnydale at fifty miles ahead. 


	42. Forty One

FORTY-ONE  
  
* * *  
  
Doors. You don't notice them, usually. They're one of those things that are just there, and you pass through them every day a hundred times without thinking a thing of it.  
  
But doors are important. They are boundaries, markers. They distinguish space; here it is inside, there it is out. Here it is a room, there a hallway. Here it is sacred, there profane.  
  
Doors. Boundaries.  
  
Here it is a cell, there freedom.  
  
Buffy noticed the doors, each one, as she walked through them. By special order they had eschewed a wheelchair. Past the common room, past the nurse's station, through the heavy doors at the end of the ward. Down a hall and through more doors to an elevator, then out again and into another hall. She was dressed simply as she walked, in the wrinkled hospital pants and top, her hair combed but dirty. Her hands were empty; she had no possessions, nothing physical to take from this place.  
  
Her eyes were a bit glazed, indicating the familiar look of medication. But they saw despite this, her eyes did, and they made note of every door, of every step through, each step bringing a growing sense of triumph and fear.  
  
A moment or two at the front desk, her lone escort beside her. Papers being signed. Giles took care of this, Mom signing where things needed to be signed, Dad doing likewise. Then Mom or Dad or Giles turned to her and spoke.  
  
"That's it, then."  
  
She walked beside them and through the final door. The sun was out, shining bright, obscured behind clouds that warned of rain in the growing drizzle. Buffy lifted her head at this, felt the warmth, felt the cold wetness for a few seconds before Giles produced his umbrella and they stepped forward.  
  
"Isn't it a beautiful day, honey?" Mom asked.  
  
Buffy nodded.  
  
And they, the others, all of them, were there.  
  
#  
  
They called her name, again and again, as though not quite believing that it was really her. Under the warm sun with the cold rain falling, rain threatening, they were there and there was her name.  
  
"Buffy!"  
  
And more than her name there came the hugs, the tight, emphatic, never-let-me-go hugs, and the weeping, too, because there was Xander, his face warm with relief and recent tears, and Dawn too, not even waiting for him to let her go. Tara, her face radiant with hope and love and joy, holding her too.  
  
Because it was Mom and Dad, and they were holding her and it was all coming out now, all of it, in words that came to Buffy in a rush, filling her and immersing her. I am alive. I live in the world; the world that is.  
  
Not good. Not bad.  
  
Just is.  
  
And I know this, have always known this, will always know this.  
  
I am alive.  
  
The others drew back for a moment and Buffy looked out, and there was Cynthia, crying as she reached for her, as she held her. This embrace was long, for this was Buffy's best and truest friend in all the world, and the embrace was good and good and good, and then finally Buffy drew back for air, and as she did Willow did too, drew back from the hug and smiled at her.  
  
Willow.  
  
Yes.  
  
And the words, her own words, returned, and in them there was truth.  
  
Sometimes, just sometimes ... maybe.  
  
Buffy saw, then, as she looked at Willow, that this truth was meaning. It was purpose. It was cause. For this truth all others could be, and must be, endured.  
  
You are my best and truest friend.  
  
Giles kept the umbrella steady over them, Dad smiling at her in the sunlight, and Mom looked at the threatening clouds and then back at the two girls. Buffy turned, looking back at the hospital door, where a man stood silently in the warm sunlight.  
  
Her eyes, despite the drugs, said more than words could.  
  
Thank you.  
  
The man smiled gently, proudly. He nodded slightly in understanding.  
  
#  
  
Buffy turned again, took a step off the curb, then another. It was a bright, sunny day, the sun hidden by clouds that threatened to rain as the rain fell now in torrents. It was reality, and she saw it all, and as she moved the fear came again, but it was a known fear. Tomorrow, she knew, there would be pain and uncertainty. There would be sorrow and danger, but most of all there would be the challenge that was the world, that was all worlds, that was life itself. There would be the weight tomorrow, the weight of remembering her meds, of fighting vampires and demons, of the horror and the reality that was her sickness, that was the Hellmouth, that was knowing that all life, regardless, is a gamble.  
  
Tomorrow.  
  
But that was tomorrow. Today there were her friends, her family. Today there was love, of them for her, of her for them. Today was today.  
  
And it was good.  
  
THE END 


End file.
